Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to never-ending looter map events.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when killing the Family Feud quest NPC after persuading the target notable.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused player heroes to be duplicated in the main party.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to spawn as one of the bodyguards when talking to a hero in the main party.
  
• Fixed kingdom decisions that had no plausible decision outcomes in edge cases.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when joining a multiplayer game.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/




Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when killing the Family Feud quest NPC after persuading the target notable. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to never-ending looter map events. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after selling prisoners to the ransom broker and giving the "gather others" command to one of our companions.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after completing the Disrupt Supply Lines conspiracy quest.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred in the inventory screen due to the equip/inspect panel of equipped items.

Fixes

• Fixed kingdom decisions that had no plausible decision outcomes in edge cases. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused player heroes to be duplicated in the main party. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed the menu entry freezes.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused clan members to die in combat even with the 100% clan member death chance reduction.

Changes

• Auto recruitment in garrisons now stops if the new recruit would cause the total wage of the garrison to pass the limit. This was previously causing the desertion of high-tier troops due to new recruits being added.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when opening the trade screen in settlements.
  
• Fixed a crash that was caused by the main storyline's second phase.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading an old save.
  
• Fixed a mission crash that occurred when a hero died in battle.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that occurred when the player forfeited during the AI's turn in board games.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the main party wounded count to increase permanently after failing a prison break attempt.

Fixes

• Improved performance on the team selection screen.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/




Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when opening the trade screen in settlements. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a crash that was caused by the main storyline's second phase. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to talk to Arzagos.
  
• Fixed a number of crashes related to the "Artisan Can't Sell Product at a Fair Price" quest.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that occurred when the player forfeited during the AI's turn in board games. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the main party wounded count to increase permanently after failing a prison break attempt. (Also in e1.5.9 hotfix.)
  
• Fixed a memory problem in settlement menus when the game language was set to Turkish.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented education notifications from disappearing after completing the related stage.

Changes

• Added plural text function support for non-English translations.
  
• Updated Chinese subtitles for the campaign intro movie.

• Fixed sound channels enabling mods to play 3D sounds.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when selecting a ranged weapon.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when dying in an arena practice fight while locked onto a target.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when using the "add_progress_to_current_building" console command.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred while reloading save games.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when a lord quest giver died.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to talk to an army leader that had not merged with the army yet.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when encountering 0 troop parties that had spawned after army vs army battles.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred while loading which was caused by some story mode heroes.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred in missions when a hero died in battle.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after trying to complete a quest with a lord solution.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after talking to a companion about their grievance in regards to the last raid.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when the player tried to talk to an unmet hero in the player's party.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to save a village from a raid.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred during the Escort Caravan quest.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when the player spoke with the daughter-in-law while she was in the player’s party.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred while navigating the encyclopedia.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred at the end of the conversation with Arzagos or Istiana.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when an issue was completed with an alternative solution while the main party was moving on the map.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to bandit factions sending ransom offers.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred during the Weaken Empire main storyline quest.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to delayed peace declarations during the main storyline last phase.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to ransom offers that were made for the player’s companions.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when the rival gang leader quest giver died during the alley mission.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when switching weapons in the smithy.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to complete a non-valid transfer in the order transfer popup.

Performance

• Improved campaign map party performance with code refactoring.
  
• Slightly reduced video memory usage on the campaign map.
  
• Increased quick conversation loading performance.
  
• The transfer of a large number of units by the AI between formations was overhauled to increase performance and prevent spikes.
  
• Made several optimisations regarding AI parties recruiting prisoners.

Save & Load

• Fixed a bug that made town alleys empty after a save/load.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the game menu ID from being saved.
  
• Fixed a bug that removed some NPCs and companions when loading a game.

Localisation

• Chinese language updates.
  
• Turkish language updates.
  
• Various text updates and grammar corrections.

Art

• Added an intro video that plays when starting a new Story mode or Sandbox campaign. This video gives an overview of the state of Calradia as the game begins.
  
• Added 23 new village scenes.
  
  • 4 Aserai
    
  • 2 Battania
    
  • 11 Empire
    
  • 3 Khuzait
    
  • 2 Sturgia
    
  • 1 Vlandia
• Added 10 new town scenes for Syronea, Onira Jaculan, Ocs hall, Sargot, Myzea, Jalmarys, Zeonica, Ortysia, Rovalt, and Diatma.
  
• Added 3 new castle scenes for Mazdahan, Sestadim, and Verecsand castles.
  
• Added a new tartan patterned scarf.
  
• Added a new combat helmet with face mask, with 2 variations (steel and brass).
  
• Added two new Sturgian leather boots.
  
• Improved performance and visuals for Sturgian level 1 and 2 castle models.
  
• Improved various materials and textures.
  
• Resolved Khuzait village houses physics problems.
  
• Fixed helmet scaling issues and helmet beard cover errors.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the two-handed Empire sword grip.

Animations

• Fixed animation weights that caused various civilian mission animation bugs.

Campaign Map

• Fixed issues with the campaign map camera zoom-in on high terrain.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented tracks from disappearing.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some tracks to disappear immediately after they appeared.

Audio

• Added new sounds that trigger when clicking various buttons on the settlement’s panel on the campaign map.
  
• Added new detail sounds for settlements.
  
• Fixed the jumpiness of ambient sounds.

UI
Changes

• Added a player character visual to the save/load screen.
  
  • Players can now see their main character with their horse in the save/load screen before they load a save game.
• Added additional information to the Kingdom wars tab.
  
  • Added a War Log tab. Players can now see recent events that have happened in the selected war.
    
  • Separated Captured Towns into two separate bars in the War item: Captured Towns and Castles. Added Prisoners bar.
    
  • Added Towns, Castles, and Tributes bars to Truce items.
    
  • Added detail tooltips to some of the bars to show detailed information about the values in those bars.
• Added difficulty presets to Campaign Options (Freebooter, Warrior, Bannerlord). These presets have default values for various difficulty options. The player can still choose to modify specific difficulty options, f.e. “Player Received Damage”.
  
  • Added a new difficulty option: Clan member death chance in missions.
    
  • Added a new difficulty option: Persuasion success chance.
    
  • Friendly troops and player received damage options' values were updated.
    
  • Removed a difficulty option: Friendly parties received damage.
• Moved "Enable Tutorial" and "Autosave Interval" from Campaign Options to Gameplay Options.
  
• Notables in the settlement overlay are now sorted by their power. Previously, only nobles were sorted and notables were randomly ordered.
  
• Added time of day and "Click to reset camera" tooltip to the “time of day” circle located on the center map bar.
  
• Added Aunt and Uncle relation texts to clan screen members.
  
• Skills shown in the Clan Members tab now show up in order of their categories.
  
• Skill passive gain info is now visible by default in the character development screen.
  
• Added mount information to encyclopedia troop equipment icons.
  
• Spectated agent name is now visible in the spectator UI.
  
• Swapped Next and Previous character buttons while spectating.
  
• Added settlement's culture to settlement tooltips.
  
• Removed unused "Dispatched" category in the Clan-Parties tab.
  
• Some interactable pillows and grounds will now be shown as "Ground" instead of "Chair".
  
• Improved cursor visuals when navigating the campaign map using controllers.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the issue icon to be visible on a settlement nameplate even though there were no issues available in that settlement.
  
• Fixed a visual bug with the hero health bars on the party screen.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies in the tournament leaderboard popup. Removed the prize column.
  
• Fixed layout/overlap issues with settlement and army overlay popups.
  
• Fixed inconsistent hero banner locations in the Clan screen.
  
• Fixed a bug that enabled players to dismiss army members during an encounter on the campaign map.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused raid icons to be displayed on settlement nameplates after loading the game.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the game speed to be “fast forward” after opening/closing menus.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the traded money information to be shown in the feed twice.
  
• Fixed a bug with loading map notifications for ransom offers.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ransom offers for the player character to be shown to the player.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the education notification for siblings to not trigger.

Battles and Sieges

• Campaign Map Interactions
  
  • Parties would sometimes lift an ongoing siege due to a high wounded ratio so that they could travel to nearby towns to rest, and returning to siege when healed. This loop has been fixed.
    
  • Fixed an issue that allowed the player to break out from a besieged town without losing men by selecting “Sally out” and “Leave battle” after.
    
  • Siege tents on the campaign map no longer switch positions when an army joins an ongoing siege.
    
  • Removed the "surrender" option in siege parley. Players will now lose 10 influence if they abandon a besieged settlement that belongs to their kingdom by parleying with the enemy for safe passage.
    
  • Improved relationship changes that occur when pillaging settlements. They will now occur only when the player is the encounter leader (there won't be any changes when the player is an army member or between AI NPC's with or without player involvement).
• General Mission Related Improvements & Fixes
  
  • Improved the battle spawn system. The spawn distance between all types of formations has been lowered. The distance between cavalry units in regular and loose formations has also been lowered. Party/army leader heroes now spawn at the center of their forces in missions.
    
  • Formations were referred to according to the type of the first unit added to them which caused various inconsistencies. A more complex but accurate logic that takes into account the most numerous troop type was added.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused all formations to stay in place and fight only when attacked or when enemies came close.
• Siege Mission Related Improvements & Fixes
  
  • Implemented a logic that makes agents choose the shorter direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) to circumvent blocker navmeshes. The lack of this logic was most significantly shown when agents tried to move to a pushing position around a moving siege tower from the front when it would have been much easier if they went around it from the other side.
    
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes caused archers to not use archer positions.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused attacker siege weapons to shoot at and damage their own siege towers and battering rams.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused soldiers to stay in place instead of following the siege ram and towers until reaching the wall.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused ranged siege weapons to sometimes choose irrelevant targets.

Character Development System

• Removed the character level effect when calculating the learning rate. Increasing the character level now no longer reduces the learning rates.
  
• Improved the battle movement speed progression concerning the athletics skill. Reduced the movement speed increase effects of all perks.
  
• Perk effects are now correctly shown in the post-battle screen.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to lose the generosity trait immediately after starting the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the “Forced Labor” perk to reduce the carrying capacity.
  
• Fixed the “In Best Light” perk secondary effect.
  
• Fixed the “Contractors” perk primary effect.
  
• Fixed the “Sharpened Edge” perk effects on crafted weapons.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented militia effects of perks from working in castles.

Clan and Party

• Clan parties can now be assigned a general stance (defensive/neutral/aggressive). If defensive is selected, clan parties won’t make hostile actions towards enemy settlements on their own. If aggressive is selected, they will try to make more hostile actions towards the enemy.
  
• The player is now able to limit the wages of all clan parties, including garrisons. If a given limit is reached, these parties/garrisons stop recruiting units. Other parties won’t leave units to garrisons that have already reached the given wage limit. All castles and towns now also recruit 1 unit daily. This recruit is selected from the local notables.
  
• The AI is now able to determine ideal wages for all of it’s settlement's garrisons, taking into account it’s financial situation and prosperity of the settlements. If a garrison’s wage isn’t paid, 5 units will desert from the garrison each day.
  
• Troop changes:
  
  • Removed spears from Vlandian Swordsman.
    
  • Sturgian Veteran Bowman now uses Commoner Axe.
    
  • Updated Stats of Druzhinnik Champion and Druzhinink to make them better all around characters.
    
  • Added a hooked guard to the Menavlion weapon so that it can dismount on hit.
    
  • The Imperial Bucellarii Bow skill has been raised to 140 from 130.
    
  • Aserai Skirmisher has been renamed to Aserai Light Archer and is now a ranged unit.
    
  • Battanian Wildling now has 140 Athleticism (was 130) and 120 one handed skill ( was 130).
    
  • Battanian Clan Warriors now have a set of throwing daggers.
    
  • Revised stats of Caravan Guards, Veteran Caravan Guards and Armed Traders.
    
  • Renamed Embers of the Flame units to: Spark, Flame and Blaze respectively.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to sell captives an infinite amount of times.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused companions to stay naked after being kicked from the clan.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the brother from being assigned to a caravan.
  
• Fixed a bug that disabled the ability of marrying siblings to a leader of another clan.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed heroes below the age of 18 to become emissaries and gain level.
  
• Fixed a bug that made younger siblings' skin colour different from the main hero's skin colour.

Armies

• Fixed an issue that allowed a starving party that had joined an army with food to continue losing troops on the first day.

Kingdoms and Diplomacy

• When joining a kingdom as a vassal for the first time, the player will now be given special equipment and elite troops.
  
• The player can now abdicate the throne in their kingdom.
  
• Relation with the king is now much more important when it comes to defection calculation. If a clan has a poor relation with the king it has a higher likelihood of defecting.
  
• Settlements can no longer be gifted to mercenaries.
  
• The loyalty drift medium for settlements was slightly reduced, increasing the possibility of rebellions occurring. Rebel clans are now also stronger. The rebel leader spawns with a higher amount of money while the rebelled settlement starts with better militia and a higher food amount.
  
• The player will now receive ransom offers for prisoners kept by the player and the player’s clan members.
  
• Combat after using “Force notables to give you recruits” or “Force peasants to give you supplies” will now cause a war whether the player is victorious or not.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused rebel clans to join deactivated kingdoms.
  
• Fixed faulty relationship requirements to join a kingdom (relationship with the king can’t be lower than -10 to be able to join).

Economy and Trade

• Towns now have 50% more money on average.
  
• The total hearth value of villages and prosperity value of castles and towns had a high inflation. The daily increase of these two variables is now smaller which prevents high inflation during late game.
  
• Wood workshops and smithies were making much less profit compared to other workshops. Profits for these two workshops have been slightly increased.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented caravans from providing any profitable trade information.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some settlements to have trash items in their markets when starting a new game.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some caravans to get stuck in settlements.
  
• Fixed a calculation bug that caused settlements to have negative taxes.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Faction rulers can now enter all settlements within their domain, regardless of their relation with the settlement owner.
  
• Tournament weapons have been slightly revised for a better gameplay experience.
  
• The secondary effect of the Siege Workshop settlement project is now listed on it’s description.
  
• Stashes are no longer available in undistributed settlements.
  
• Ransom brokers are now visible while pressing the "Alt" button.

Quests & Issues

• Related quests will now fail if the player forces peasants to give supplies (minor coercion) or forces notables to give recruits (major coercion).
  
• Related quests will now fail if the player changes his kingdom and becomes an enemy with the quest giver.
  
• Added/Changed some lord solution logs for quests that have a lord solution.
  
• Added “Remaining time” value to story mode quests.
  
• “Lady's Knight Out” quest's acceptance log has been updated.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to get stuck in the lord's hall when trying to solve the "Overpriced Raw Materials" quest with a ruler solution.
  
• A bug caused "Art of Trade" quest rewards and payments to be incorrect. It has been fixed.
  
• Fixed a bug in the main storyline where a lord told the player to talk to a dead character.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused quest items to be removed from the inventory in quest "Deliver the Herd", even though the player chose the option to keep them.
  
• “Inn and Out” quest reward gold has been fixed to 800.
  
• Fixed a dialogue state problem that caused the “Manual Laborers” quest giver to ask for prisoners twice.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the “Village Needs Draught Animals” quest alternative (companion) solution to give reward twice.
  
• Fixed the “Scout Enemy Garrisons” quest log floating point calculation related bug.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some quest NPC's to act like companions in the tavern after resolving the related quest.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some irrelevant items to be missing in inventory after completing the “Gang Leader Needs Weapons” quest.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Escort Merchant Caravan" quest from failing when the quest was taken from a rebel city and the city owner changed ownership to a hostile faction.
  
• Fixed a bug that failed the “Rescue Your Family” quest after 10 years.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the main hero from completing the” Rescue Your Family” quest if the game had been saved in the menu that opens the final conversation with Radagos.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the main hero from sending a companion to solve an issue.
  
• Added various improvements and fixes for the “Rival Gang Moving In” quest.
  
• “Scout Enemy Garrisons” quest conditions no longer include the issue giver being an army leader.

Conversations & Encounters

• Added new facial expressions as the default idles for NPCs based on their traits and relationship to the player.
  
• The peace option through dialog has been blocked when the player is in a kingdom.
  
• The equipment of non-hero troops in map conversations has been diversified.
  
• Fixed animation problems that occurred when the player entered a conversation in the crouch state.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused friendly army members to open a parley conversation with the player.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to join the army through the conversation screen after paying for safe passage.

Other

• Fixed an issue with the disorganised speed penalty continuing until the party travelled to a settlement instead of disappearing after a short period.
  
• Fixed a bug with the photo mode colour grade selection.
  
• Fixed DLSS ghosting issues.
  
• Made a minor visual fix to the Banner Editor.
  
• Removed saddles from the game that were added for testing purposes (players will still keep them if they have them in a save game).
  
• Scythes, pickaxes, hoes, blacksmith hammers, pitchforks and hammers can now be used as civilian equipment.
  
• Blunt Broadsword Blade piece which is used in tournaments now deals blunt damage.
  
• Added hidden culture affixes to several armours, weapons, horse harnesses and horses which will make pieces of the culture more likely to be found in said culture's settlements.
  
• Fixed a calculation bug that influenced the number of garrison troops when creating a rebel settlement.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the bandit party banner colour to be wrong after loading a game.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused minor factions to have wrong banner colours after leaving a kingdom.
  
• The player family's last seen location information at the beginning of the game has been fixed.
  
• Fixed grammatical errors and unidiomatic expressions in some of the log entries.
  
• Changed the weapon price calculation formula to correctly price Bastard Swords as two-handed weapons.
  
• Fixed a bug that made the main party disappear when the player died as a prisoner.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred on round start if a castle gate was destroyed during the warmup phase.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when entering the team selection screen.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after loading into Skirmish matches.

Design & Balance

• Adjusted cavalry blocking cones. Shields no longer cover below the boots of the rider, making it easier to hit the horse. Check this forum post for more info.
  
• Khuzait Throwing Spear damage decreased from 113 to 87.
  
• Ash Throwing Spear damage decreased from 105 to 77.
  
• Pilum damage decreased from 113 to 83.

Map Related

• Echerion
  
  • Revised many areas of Echerion, added new details and new pillars to A flag and many physics fixes. Check this forum post for more info.
• Xauna
  
  • Revised many areas of Xauna, added new details and many physics fixes. Check this forum post for more info.
• Ayzar Stronghold
  
  • Adjusted many spawn positions for both teams, added new choke points around the map, added new details all around the scene and made many physics fixes. Check this forum post for more info.
• Fixed various physics problems on Tsagaan Castle.
  
• Fixed some barricade issues on Baravenos Encirclement.
  
• Fixed various bugs on Domogtul Castle.

Other - Miscellaneous

• Added player kick polls to all game modes. They can be started directly from the scoreboard. A majority of the team needs to vote "yes" for a player to be kicked.
  
• Added automatic kick for excessive team damage and kills.
  
• Throwing spears now play an animation properly while switching between melee/ranged.
  
• Fixed animation glitches that occurred when a player took over an NPC unit in Captain mode.
  
• Reduced incorrect client predictions of chain attacks.

Server & Network

• Fixed character crouch state synchronisation issues between the server and clients.

UI
Changes

• Added new, and improved existing equipment perk icons.
  
• Added icons to context menu items in the “Recent Games” tab.
  
• Clan invitation button now only appears for the leader and the officers of the clan.

Fixes

• Fixed the Exposure and Brightness options.
  
• Fixed the Login and Exit button visuals.
  
• Fixed being able to change tabs while entering text in the lobby.
  
• Fixed a bug that made the brace ready icon visible when it wasn’t available.

UI
Changes

• Added “last hitter” information to melee and ranged blows. The Last hitter of an agent will now get the kill score if the hit agent suicides shortly after it is hit.
  
• A headshot kill indicator has been added to the kill feed.
  
• Date and time shown is now correct with the selected language. English is GB format by default.
  
• Mission item outline colours are now different for Ammo and Throwable weapons.
  
• Equipment control (item equip/drop) system has been changed for gamepads. Players will now change their equipped weapons with the RB/R1 button (with this change, the keybinds will reset).

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused centre top notifications to disappear when a loading screen had been opened.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the combat log to print incorrect damage amounts.

Performance

• Performance improvements related to memory usage.
  
• Improved CPU multi-core performance.

Animations

• Fixed position jump issues on some death animations.

Combat

• Increased the flee radius to make it easier for riderless horses to flee battles.
  
• Improved cavalry charging AI decisions by reducing the amount of time a unit spends moving away from the enemy in certain scenarios.
  
• Adjusted the range calculation of range units to prevent targeting of very distant targets.
  
• A bug that caused formation unit frames that had no valid path to the ordered position to be accepted as valid unit frames was fixed.

Other

• Throwing weapon spawn positions have been corrected when dropped from characters so that they no longer spawn under the ground.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the camera to get stuck when a ballista was destroyed while in use by the player.
  
• Many localisation fixes.

Modding

• Added a warning for assigning invalid textures to terrain paint layers.
  
• Improved the world map terrain layer painting performance.
  
• We now support .xslt extension alongside the .xsl extension.
  
• Skill effects are no longer serialisable, it's not possible to save skill effects by default anymore.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused command line console texts to be cut after non-English characters.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some terrain layers to use the wrong textures for blending with meshes.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after launching a new campaign after leaving the editor mode in the modding toolkit.
  
• Fixed the faulty XML issue generated via the "Create new module" button in the modding toolkit.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented multiple weapon components to be read from an XML item.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused existing mods' localization files to be loaded even if the mod wasn’t loaded.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused horse sounds to disappear in some cases.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues-updated.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when hovering over a stone pile with a mouse while the order screen was open.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to use an anvil in a civilian mission.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when creating a new lord party.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred during the Prodigal Son quest if the quest target escaped the house before the player killed the thugs.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after giving the "gather all companions" command.

Fixes

• Missing attributes have been restored on family members' encyclopedia pages.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Fortitude Tonic" perk to increase hero death chance in battles.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the toggling of selected formations with the CTRL key.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused various inconsistencies in the number of used warhorses when upgrading the troops while having two or more warhorse types in the inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player's clan to be removed from the kingdom if the kingdom's ruler had been weakened.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused stuttering while moving the camera.
  
• Fixed a memory leak issue.
  
• Fixed a shader loading leak.
  
• Fixed a granite async loading issue.

Changes

• Optimized the sound occlusion system in order to reduce major FPS drops.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues-updated.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred after the initial Skirmish match loading process.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the multiplayer lobby to freeze for several seconds during login.

Changes

• Both range and melee troops AI has been improved in Captain mode. It will now make more accurate attacking and defending behaviour decisions.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused ranged units not to swap to a melee weapon when the player charged towards them.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues-updated.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when opening the launcher.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when talking to an army member.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to edit the gold amount on the barter screen.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented the colour grade selection from working correctly in photo mode.
  
• Fixed the incorrectly displayed name of the army leader in the pillaging menu which occurred if the army leader had died during the siege.
  

Changes

• Improved stability of the intermission screen.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues-updated.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when connected to a server in between games.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when selecting a team.
  
• Fixed a crash related to updating gold amounts.

Crashes

• Fixed a ModelViewer crash in the Editor.

Known Issues
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues-updated.401168/

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to following parties with no members after defeating an army.

06/04/21

• Fixed Sturgian speed bonus while on snow getting calculated incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a save-load problem that occurred while clearing heroes without skills in the save file during loading.

30/03/21

Fixes

• Fixed an issue that occurred when starting a conversation with a daughter-in-law/son-in-law while they were in the player's party.

Changes

• Lobby Chat System - Currently in test mode and only accessible by selected people.
  
• Recent Players Tab in Friends List - Players are now able to see the recently played players in their friend list.
  
• Intermission screen - In custom servers, players are now able to join the next server via an intermission screen rather than directly returning to the lobby screen.
  
• Siege warmup time decreased from 5 to 3 minutes.

• Added Singleplayer and Multiplayer only startup executables.

23/03/21

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to prison break a lord.

Fixes

• Fixed some inconsistencies in rich text icon rendering.
  
• Fixed an issue with the daughter in the "Notable wants daughter found" quest.

16/03/21

Fixes

• Fixed DLSS settings not being shown in the options menu.
  
• Fixed a physic model issue with sturgia_castle_gatehouse_a_l2's merlons.
  
• Fixed an issue with helmet scaling inconsistencies.
  
• Fixed an issue on the party screen that prevented the reordering of troops with drag and drop.

Changes

• Revised bread cover types.

Fixes

• Fixed some level design issues on the Domogtul Castle siege map.

Changes

• Reduced Javelin and Throwing Axe shield-damage multipliers.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when the player or the hideout boss killed one of the spectator troops during a hideout duel.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when pressing Ctrl and + on an empty item stack.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when switching weapon types in the crafting screen when secondary usage had been selected.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when encountering parties on the campaign map.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to talk to a lord in a besieging army.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when executing the last non-mercenary lord of a kingdom.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred while loading a game after activating the 'Lord Needs Garrison Troops' quest.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to a 'Know-how' perk bug after attacking a caravan.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when entering a settlement after being held as a prisoner at the time of loading a save file.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after the conversation with 'Tacteos' was finished.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after the conversation with 'Arzagos' about 'Assemble the Dragon Banner' was finished.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when the 'Conspiracy Base of Operations' quest was completed with the Hideout Boss dead.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred due to clans being created in the last phase of the main storyline not having their leaders set correctly.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading an old save that started on the siege aftermath menu (which now contains pillaging options).
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred by decision proposals made by eliminated or mercenary clans.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred after losing a battle with an army.

Save & Load

• Fixed a bug that prevented saving on some game menus.
  
• Fixed a bug that made some notables and companions disappear on load.

Localisation

• Fixed missing reference links for non-English languages in the 'Concepts' texts of the 'Encyclopedia'.
  
• Turkish translation updates.
  
• Chinese translation updates.
  
• Minor text updates.

Art

• Added a new clothing item: 'Decorated Thick Tunic'.
  
• Added a new cloak: 'Reinforced Neck Guard'.
  
• Performance improvements to Sturgia level 2 gatehouse model.
  
• Fixed cloth physics issues with the 'Northern Warlord Helmet'.

Animations

• NPC characters now have a smoother transition from walking to running when escorting players.
  
• Inventory animation refactoring has been completed. Characters no longer reset their animations when a new item is equipped.

Audio

• Minor ambient sound fixes to scenes.

UI
Changes

• Party Screen Change Values
  
  • The party screen now shows influence, horse and morale change on top of gold change. Influence gain shows up while donating troops, horse change shows up while upgrading troops, and morale change shows up while recruiting prisoners. Players are now able to see exactly how much currency they will gain or lose when they close the screen with the 'Done' button.
• UI Code Gen
  
  • We've implemented a new system for UI screen initialisation and execution. This change improves performance and memory usage.
• Gamepad Navigation Improvements
  
  • Players can now navigate some selected screens with the Dpad.
    
  • Initial menu and conversations with Dpad up and down. While on the campaign map, when the cursor is at the centre, players can click Dpad left, focus on the game menu and navigate the game menu with up and down. Clicking right and down at that stage will focus on the map bar and using Dpad left and right will navigate the map bar. From the centre, right will focus on the map notifications and up will focus on the portraits on the settlement overlay.
    
  • This feature is currently only enabled with gamepads but will be implemented for keyboard arrow keys and the enter key for the click action in the near future.
• Added a colour switcher button to the Banner Editor. This button will swap the current sigil colours with the background colours.
  
• Changed keybind texts to key icons in the scoreboard and spectator screens.
  
• Added conformity bar and tooltip to party prisoner tuples.
  
• Moved governor assignment teleportation action to town management popup close to avoid unwanted teleportation of clan members.
  
• Added a new illustration to the kingdom 'Diplomacy' screen background.
  
• Added a new 'Issue Solved by Hero' notification to settlement events (notifications above the settlement nameplates) to inform the player about actions that AI lords are taking when entering a settlement.
  
• Improved how rich text icons are displayed. They're now shown more clearly (e.g. gold icon in texts).
  
• Added a warning (red text colour change) to map info bar party size label. It will now turn red if the main party is currently over the party limit.
  
• Added ransom broker to the mission name markers (ALT key in tavern scenes).
  
• Added a new rebellion map event icon.
  
• Changed workshop names to reflect their names rather than their job names, this will make the naming consistent with other screens.
  
• Improved visibility of the green arrow on the campaign map that shows up for gamepad navigation.
  
• Added map notifications for gained traits.
  
• Inventory menu + and - keys now buys/sells all when combined with Ctrl.

Fixes

• Fixed small layout issues in the 'Recruitment', 'FaceGen', 'Options', 'Quests', 'Crafting', 'Character Developer', 'Encyclopedia', 'Gift fief', 'Inventory' and 'Education' screens.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the wrong damage amounts to be shown in the combat log.
  
• Fixed some input bugs with backspace in integer inputs.
  
• Added the missing 'Create Kingdom' hint back to the Clan screen 'Create kingdom' button.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the 'Last location' in notables' tooltips to appear twice.
  
• Fixed a bug that triggered the 'X Bandit Hero died' notification.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the party speed tooltip to be different from the actual speed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the menu text to appear incorrectly after a hostile action had been ended by a declaration of peace.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the raid icon to be shown after saving/loading the game in a recently raided settlement.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the pillaging options to not be clickable after sieges.

Battles and Sieges

• Killing a lord on the battlefield no longer triggers relation penalties.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented routed agents from switching to run mode.
  
• Spectator/ghost camera mode in missions now considers scrolling through more important characters first, such as generals, lords, companions etc.
  
• Parties with a high wounded ratio now visit settlements more often to reduce the risk of being caught by enemies.
  
• Fixed the prosperity loss calculations for pillaging
  
• Fixed a pillaging related bug where the AI would take into account the settlement owner’s culture instead of the settlement culture when deciding what to do after a siege.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect AI formation behaviour.

Character Development System

• Sandbox mode has been added to the game:
  
  • Weight and build sliders have been added to both sandbox and campaign mode.
    
  • Sandbox mode allows players to choose a starting age group.
    
  • Sandbox starting positions on the world map are determined by the selected character culture.
• 'Pick Them off the Walls' and 'Make Them Pay' perks have been implemented.
  
• Crafting stamina and stamina recovery rate now scales with the 'Smithing' skill.
  
• 'Leadership' skill effect on morale has been decreased.
  
• Riding 'Veterinary' perk now halves the chance of a hero's mount dying or becoming lame after it falls in battle.
  
• Leadership 'Authority' perk secondary effect has been changed to 'Increase party size limit by 5'.
  
• Tactics 'Swift Regroup' perk primary effect has been changed to 'Decrease disorganized time for breaking sieges or raids by 15%'.
  
• Scout 'Foragers' perk secondary effect has been changed to '15% reduction in disorganized state recovery duration'.
  
• Fixed Smithing 'Sharpened Edge' and 'Sharpened Tip' perks.
  
• Fixed Scouting Vanguard and Rearguard perks and perk effects.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused mobile parties to be too fast when they had been called to an army with the Call to Arms perk.

Clan and Party

• Family members can now be commanded in missions along with companions.
  
• Dungeon prisoners are now barterable along with prisoners in the party.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to attack a clan member's party.
  
• Fixed a bug that provided passive relations increases when leaving children in a settlement.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented family members from providing a passive relations increase when left in a settlement.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from assigning a new clan role if the previous one was assigned to a caravan leader.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the player's brother from being able to be assigned as governor or sent to solve issues.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some troops to need a horse when upgrading to unmounted troops.

Kingdoms and Diplomacy

• Fixed being able to join an army through conversation after a truce.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a ruler’s clan banner to be incorrect after losing control of a kingdom.
  
• Fixed a bug that led to unregistered dynamically created kingdoms.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Added Prison Break:
  
  • Players can break into enemy settlements to rescue clan and family members, vassals, friendly and neutral lords.
    
  • After approaching a guard with a bribe to let you into the dungeons, the prison break mission will begin. The sum of the bribe depends on the ransom value of the prisoner, security of the settlement and 'Roguery' skill of the player.
    
  • In order to break out the prisoner successfully, both you and the prisoner must defeat all the guards within the dungeon without getting knocked out. Higher security & wall level will make the break out harder by having more guards stand in the way of you and your escape.
    
  • Should the prisoner get knocked out in the escape, you’ll have to fight your way out alone to save yourself. Leaving the prisoner behind could result in him dying on the dungeon floor or being locked up behind bars again.
    
  • Should you get knocked out during the escape you’ll become a prisoner, or even worse, die.
• Fixed a mission end condition ambiguity that caused the player to skip the bandit boss fight by becoming unconscious just before all the bandits were killed by the player troops.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented town workshop buildings from affecting town construction speed.

Quests & Issues

• Removed randomisation when calculating issue difficulty.
  
• Duration, crime rating gain, and troop requirements have been updated for 'Escort Merchant Caravan', 'Overpriced Raw Materials', 'Nearby Bandit Base', 'Rival Gang Moving In', 'Needs to Deliver a Herd', 'Needs Military Training for Retainers', 'Can’t sell product at a fair price', 'Needs Access to Village Commons', 'Needs Grain Seeds', 'Needs Help with Brigands', 'Extortion by Deserters', 'Lady's Knight Out', 'Army of Poachers', 'Family Feud' and 'Gang Leader Needs Weapons' quests.
  
• Extortion by Deserters
  
  • Fixed the Deserter Party getting stuck in or near the quest settlement after the player lost a battle against them.
    
  • Fixed the Deserter Party moving too slow. Foot troops in the deserter party are now given Tier 2 horses of their culture to boost up party speed.
    
  • Reduced the size of the Deserter Party to adjust quest difficulty.
• Escort Merchant Caravan
  
  • The quest has been redesigned and reimplemented from scratch.
• Army of Poachers
  
  • Changed/added some dialogues.
    
  • The quest will now fail if the target village is raided or under raid.
• Deliver a Herd
  
  • The quest time limit has been increased from 5 to 30.
    
  • The crime rating penalty has been decreased from 30 to 10.
    
  • Herders were removed from the quest and quest dialogues were updated.
• Company of Trouble
  
  • The quest reward formula has been updated.
    
  • The food steal chance and amount were decreased.
• Needs Draught Animals
  
  • The number of animals will be determined when the issue is created and will not be changed as long as the issue is active.
    
  • The cost of animals formula has been updated.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused the number of requested animals to be different from the quest journal entry.
    
  • Fixed a bug that caused the quest alternative solution reward gold to be given twice.
• Scout Enemy Garrisons
  
  • Only faction leaders will now be able to give the quest.
    
  • The quest will affect the quest giver's influence -0.1 daily.
    
  • The scouting skill requirement has been decreased from 40 to 30.
• The Spy Among Us
  
  • The base reward value has been increased from 300 to 500.
• The Art of The Trade
  
  • Fixed a bug that caused the quest giver to ask for 0 items and give 0 denars as a reward.
• Needs Access to Village Commons
  
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the rival party from spawning.
• Notable wants daughter found
  
  • Fixed a bug that allowed the hero to attack their companions in a duel.
• Raid an Enemy Territory
  
  • Fixed a bug that opened the encounter menu with the quest giver at the end of the conversation.
• Fixed a bug that caused the player to get stuck in a mission after solving the quest with a lord solution.

Conversations & Encounters

• Fixed a bug that caused the next dialogue to be broken after loading a game during an active persuasion attempt.

Other

• Removed skill templates that overrode designated skill sets.
  
• Removed non-civilian tagged weapons from civilian starting equipment.
  
• Updated equipment and formations of the Bandit Bosses.
  
• Sturgian Veteran Bowman now uses the Nordic Shortbow.
  
• Removed the ability to recording campaign missions since it is not currently supported and causes crashes.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some heroes not to spawn after reaching adulthood.
  
• Fixed some encyclopedia entries that had inconsistent spelling and missing place names.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to kill shop workers in towns.
  
• Fixed a bug that made new adults naked.
  
• Fixed a bug that made disbanded parties' names "unnamedMobileParty".
  
• Fixed a bug that caused all randomly generated starting player names to be Battanian.

Multiplayer servers will be made available for a limited time for the beta version of the game.


Design & Balance

• Fixed a bug that caused the wrong team to win in overtime.

Map Related

• Added two new siege maps: Domogtul Castle and Ayzar Stronghold.
  
• Xauna
  
  • Improvements to the pit fence physics and other fixes.
• Echerion
  
  • Many physics improvements to corners and other fixes.
    
  • Fixed the path material.
• Baraveneos Encirclement
  
  • Fixed an issue with the barricade changing its position when damaged near flag G.
    
  • Lowered outer and inner gate HP. Slightly increased G flag gate HP.
    
  • Some physics improvements.
• Tsagaan Castle
  
  • Solved physics problems on stairs.

Other - Miscellaneous

• Fixed some troops from appearing as too old.

Server & Network

• Fixed a crash that occurred when logging into multiplayer.

UI
Changes

• Added a new option to disable "Network Alert Icons" and added a visual representation to describe each icon.
  
• A confirmation popup now shows up while quitting a multiplayer game.
  
• Added a 'Mute / Unmute all players' button to the multiplayer scoreboard.
  
• Improved the visibility of player avatars and troop type icons both on the scoreboard and HUD.
  
• Added scores to the Skirmish and Captain game mode HUDs.

Fixes

• Fixed a crash that occurred while logging in or reloading player data in the multiplayer lobby.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the 'Invite friend' button to disappear.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the 'Spear Brace' icon button to appear incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the 'Rename Clan' popup to stay visible after the clan had been disbanded.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the removal of clan announcements.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused 'un-mute all' to not function properly.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when enabling/disabling cloth simulation.

Art

• Fixed castle gate colliders that were not fitting to the gate properly.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused snow to flicker in some scenes.

Audio

• Added the Sound Occlusion option. It's forced ON in Multiplayer and can be turned on/off for Singleplayer.

UI
Changes

• Added a 'Reset to Default' button to keybinds category in the game options.
  
• Extended the 'Turn Camera With Horse In First Person' option to include 'Always'.
  
• Improved the readability of query popup texts.

Fixes

• Official modules can now be enabled but not disabled through the launcher. This will address the issue where no modules would load. Players can now enable official modules from the launcher and open the game correctly. No more deleting LauncherData.xml!
  
• Added some missing characters from Korean, Japanese and Chinese language fonts.
  
• Fixed the combat log incorrectly showing a killing blow when one hadn't occurred.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the 'Refresh Rate' option to be reset to the highest option in fullscreen mode.
  
• Fixed the text for bastard swords and axes.

Performance

• Greatly improved initial loading of the game by changing how font files are loaded and through other fixes and optimisations.
  
• Fixed a memory leak that occurred after entering scenes.
  
• Small Multi-Core usage improvements have been made.
  
• Disk usage improvements have been made.

Animations

• Cloth simulation for capes has been disabled when the agent has a shield on its back.

Combat

• Fixed a bug that caused archers to ignore cavalry despite them being at the same distance as other troops.
  
• Increased the firing range of archers that are targeting cavalry units.
  
• Javelins now deal 75% of their weapon damage to shields (increased from 10%).
  
• Throwing Impale perk now lets javelins penetrate shields as intended.
  
• Throwing axes now deal 50% of their weapon damage to shields (increased from 10%).
  
• Reduced the accuracy of crossbows while moving and added mount rear as a negative factor for accuracy.
  
• Improved camera collision with objects such as walls and bridges.
  
• Combat physics fix to prevent agents hitting each other at the same frame with kick or bash
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the character to move forward when jumping without any other movement.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the wrong dying animation to be picked when an agent was killed with a heavy weapon.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to crouch while reloading the crossbow.

Other

• Fixed a DLSS bug that caused some blurring.
  
• Fixed a DLSS bug related to resolution scale causing a dark screen.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused corrupted rendering with medium lighting quality.

• Added new functionalities to the GI baking procedure.
  
• Added new mission parameters to the sound manager panel.
  
• Improved the body mask option for path barriers.
  
• Fixed the resize terrain issues.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused selection overlays to stay visible when helpers had been disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the mouse cursor to snap to the bottom right corner.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the world map terrain to be black in the editor.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused decals to be visible even though their assigned layer had been disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented texture's alpha channel sdf from being generated.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented reimporting of assets.
  
• Fixed inactive 'Terrain' and 'Shadow' options on the visibility window.

Known Issues:
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

It seems hard to believe, but a whole year has passed since Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord was released in Early Access. And such a challenging year it has been, for everyone. We hope you are staying safe and healthy, and that the game was able to serve as an enjoyable distraction for you during these difficult times. We also want to express our gratitude to everyone that has supported us since the early access launch and provided us with many great suggestions and ideas that have helped us tremendously with the development of the game!

With that in mind, this first anniversary seems like the perfect occasion to take another look at the path we’re walking together. Initially, we had estimated that the early access period would last for about a year. And while we are happy with the progress that has been made so far, we feel that the game isn’t quite ready for its full release just yet. As such, our tentative estimate for the release is Q4 2021, however, development will continue for as long as necessary as we take the time to ensure that the game is fun and enjoyable.

On a connected note, many of you have been inquiring about the game coming to consoles. As we’ve always said, our focus right now is on finishing the PC version. Consoles will come later on – but they will come! When we have more information to share about that, you’ll be the first to know, so stay tuned to our website, forums, and social media channels.

With that cleared up, let’s move on to discuss what has happened with the game over the past year!



When Bannerlord first released, we were humbled by the sheer amount of players that chose to support us in early access. And while many of you were able to play the game without any major issues, there were those of you that experienced bugs, crashes and performance challenges.

This is something that we have worked hard to address, especially in the early weeks and months. To help in those efforts, we introduced a separate beta branch for the game which, thanks to some supportive (and patient!) players, has since helped to highlight and resolve many issues before they could make their way to the live version of the game.

Naturally, there still remains work to be done, but to date, the performance and stability of the game have improved by leaps and bounds. For instance, a recent internal profiling of a 1000 unit field battle played on a GTX 1660ti and i7 8700k averages around 27-30 fps (36 ms) on the EA release build and sits at 47-50 fps (21 ms) on the latest patch. Similarly, when it comes to the campaign map, a setup that we use for continuous testing (GTX 1080 and i7 8700k) experienced an increase from 80 to 90 fps in fast forward.


Average performance in field battles in e1.0.10 compared to e.1.5.8

Other technical areas have also seen much progress over this past year. Many spikes that caused stutters in gameplay were resolved, scene loading times were greatly reduced, DLSS was added, savegame compression was improved by around 80%, and the optimisation of texture streaming reduced pop-in and sliced roughly 10GB off the game size!

In the same spirit, we’ve made many improvements since launch to ensure that the basic gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. By utilising your feedback, we've been able to make some welcome changes on this front, with additions like quick map conversations, and the overhauled hideout troop selection window. This continued throughout the year with small, but impactful tweaks, such as; expanding quick conversations to settlements; the ability to categorise save files; and the addition of a range of menu shortcuts that, among other things, allow you to quickly switch tabs or move/upgrade/etc. entire stacks of items.


You can now initiate conversations on the campaign map

Another important area that we’ve made efforts to improve on is how the game communicates with you. Quite early on, a new visual system was implemented to display map events like raids, battles, and sieges on the UI instead of with 3D icons, in order to improve overall visibility. And in a similar vein, we later added mobile party trackers that allow players to better understand where their clan parties and kingdom armies are. It was also crucial to make the world more accessible by adding events like tournaments and quests to settlement nameplates, improving the various management screens, and introducing a number of new notifications and tooltips. Now, you are notified about things like threats against your fiefs or nobles resolving issues, and generally have more information about the world, as well as, your own actions.


A number of UI improvements have been made to display events clearly

Of course, it’s not all been quality of life updates. As early access has progressed, other content and features have been added and adjusted as well. This includes some subtle, but substantial things like balancing the prices, production, and availability of items and equipment in the market; reworking troop trees; introducing new item modifiers, including the lame horse feature; expanding conversations; and so on... At the same time, it also encompasses some more overt changes, like the many new quests or the overhaul of the prisoner recruitment system - which not only offers more interesting choices to you and ties them to the character system but also taught NPCs to do the same. Additionally, more recently we have seen the introduction of Sandbox mode and prison break, which offer new avenues for you to explore. And let’s not forget photo mode, which allows you to immortalise your epic (and silly) moments in Bannerlord!


Photo mode allows you to capture and enhance moments from your adventures

Moving on, we want to discuss a topic that many of you care deeply about: the character development system. When the game first launched, we were faced with some difficult choices. Perks were incomplete, but we were also not entirely happy with their design at that point either. Initially, each perk had just a single effect, which made them interesting and useful for either the player character or for companions and AI nobles… but not both. In the end, we decided to revisit the design by reworking many of the existing effects, and added a second effect to most of the 300+ perks in the game, giving you more freedom and options when developing your characters and making it much less likely for any perks to go to waste. This decision didn’t come easy as it prolonged the time required to fill in missing content, but we believe it was the right choice as it made the game better in the long run.


There are now over 300 perks in the game!

Character progression and skills also saw some fairly substantial changes. Initially, character levels would grow based on skill levels, but this led to situations where you could harm your own progression unintentionally by focusing on just a few skills that would take longer and longer to develop. To solve this, the system was changed to be based on raw experience instead, which means that characters can grow even if their skill levels don’t increase. Alongside this, we expanded the ways in which you can gain experience, whether it be Combat in the arena, Charm in barters, or Roguery for robbing peasants. Having said that, we hear you and we agree that this should receive more attention still.

Beyond that, we also want to provide you with a greater number of customisation options, which so far have included additional colours for skin, hair, and eyes; a number of new hairstyles, with a barber to change them at; as well as, a much-requested option to control your character’s weight and build.


A number of Character Customisation additions have been added to the game

However, It wasn’t just heroes that needed some additional care! With the combat system and battle simulation generally favouring strong fighters, a situation arose whereby, unbeknownst to us, the development of troops in parties was skewed. Thankfully, you stepped in to let us know that it could be overly difficult to raise recruits to a higher level and, in response to this, we introduced a shared experience system that ensures that combat experience is more evenly distributed among your troops.

Finally, the interplay between the combat and character systems was revised. Originally, the combat AI level was derived from the NPC’s character level. However, that meant that any high-level character, whether it was a merchant or a warrior, would be a proficient fighter. This was changed to take into account the character’s skill level for their wielded weapon instead. It required some additional work with balancing troop stats and equipment, but, much like with Perks, it has improved the game in the long run!


Characters now take their weapon skill level into account for their wielded weapon

A related area of the game that has seen quite a bit of development since launch is the Clan & Family system. In the past year, we created a healthier population with many new lords and ladies added, taught them to intermingle and marry, improved the coming of age for their offspring, and enabled natural death (along with a way to disable it, as requested by our Warband veterans!).

New options for clan leaders were also added. For one, you can now develop the skills of your offspring through the education feature as they grow older. Adult clan members, in turn, have become more useful, with expanded Captain, Party Leader, and Governor Perk effects. And even if you prefer to keep them safe, they can develop relations with locals when you leave them in a settlement. Or if you wish to arrange a marriage for one of your clan members - you can now do so!


You can now influence the development of your offspring at key moments throughout their childhood

Finally, AI decision making was worked on as well, leading to better target selection for parties and financial management for clan leaders, alongside various tweaks to deal with starvation and the ability to recruit from and trade with neutral, rather than just allied, settlements. Still, mismanagement and poor luck remain possible for both players and AI nobles and have been made much more impactful with the introduction of rebellions.


Unhappy citizens can now take up arms and seize control of their settlement

Of course, you may aspire to greater things than being just the head of your household, such as serving or leading a kingdom through the maelstrom of Calradian power struggles! The latter, in particular, is something that we wanted to enable early on with the introduction of the sandbox kingdom creation, as well as, the ability to hire mercenary clans to support your realm and a kingdom decision to handle succession.

However, whether you are a king or not, you should be able to influence major political and military actions which is why the war and peace barter was converted to a kingdom decision that vassals and rulers can both partake in.


Clan leaders now play a bigger role in kingdom diplomacy

Diplomacy, in general, has been a hot topic throughout development, with many ideas put forward. Our focus here has been to improve the decision making on the part of vassals and kings so that they act in interesting but also reasonable ways. Thanks to some pretty elaborate playtesting and feedback, they have improved quite a bit when it comes to self-preservation in war and peace decisions as well as when it comes to making more reliable, personality and relation-based defections, or rejections thereof.

Naturally, not all diplomacy takes place in such a courteous fashion. And so, army AI received much of the same attention that clan parties did. Leaders are now much less likely to pursue faraway targets and favour attacking holdings of people they dislike over those that they like. And to make things more interesting, a new decision was added to sieges as well! Pillaging allows conquerors to devastate, pillage, or show mercy to a settlement, which AI lords do based on their personality, available influence, and morale. This feature further adds to the dynamic of the world with settlement projects now on the line to be destroyed.


Conquerors can now pillage, devastate, or show mercy to their new subjects

One of the staples of the Mount & Blade series is the combat system, and there’s no question that we want to continue to use the early access period to further improve it with your input. There have already been a number of notable additions since the start of early access, such as autoblock, cheering, target locking, an additional radial order wheel, and the ability to wield (some) crossbows on horseback. And, as other systems like perks have made progress, complimentary mechanics, such as the ability to assign captains to formations, have been introduced to make use of them.


You can now celebrate your victories alongside your troops!

At the same time, we have received a lot of feedback about field battles and siege missions, and we have used this to address many issues and improve the behaviour of agents and formations. The overhaul to formation and tactics AI, for one, introduced new unit categories like skirmishers to better handle troops with throwing weapons. It also taught mixed formations to shuffle their shield bearers to the front in a shield wall, and improved the tactical response to things like chokepoints, ranged fire, and the composition of enemy forces. Similarly, the weapon selection of agents is smarter and their understanding of weapon length and positioning was improved. Having said that, sieges, in particular, remain an active part of development and will continue to see improvements.


Formation and tactics AI have been overhauled

The skill-based directional combat system wasn’t forgotten either, and, with the help of collaborative play-testing and suggestions from the community, has seen significant improvements to attacking, blocking, animations, and movement. The readying and aiming durations of ranged weapons like bows, crossbows and throwing weapons were also reworked and tied to weapon speeds, adding more variety between ranged weapons of the same kind. Together these changes make for a more fluid and challenging experience in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

The importance of multiplayer to the game cannot be stressed enough, and we showed that to be the case when we first introduced you to Bannerlord with a closed beta before the early access launch. Using player feedback and bug reports, we were able to improve many aspects of the game in preparation for EA, and since then multiplayer has gone through quite a few changes. While we worked on combat, class, and game mode balance, 3 new Captain, Skirmish, and Siege scenes, as well as, 2 new Team Deathmatch maps were added.


New scenes have been added to all multiplayer game modes

These changes were accompanied by a number of UI improvements, which can be seen in places like the map loading screens and additional HUD elements. Additionally, new and impactful gameplay features, such as spear bracing and sound occlusion, were also implemented.


Spear bracing allows you to dispatch enemy horses with ease!

Alongside these additions to the game, a number of social features were added to support the community. On the one hand, we enabled Anti-cheat, introduced penalties for quitting matches too often, and added a global mute, as well as, an in-game reporting system with detailed game and chat logs to help maintain a healthy and fair environment.

And on the other hand, we introduced mechanics like the match history that enables you to find information about your recent matches, which not only provides match details but allows you to keep track of people you have played with and increase your circle of friends. This was complemented by the introduction of the clan system which lets you band together with your friends for some casual play, or compete in competitive clan matches against other teams through a dedicated clan match system. And thanks to an in-game clan roster, it’s easy to keep track of and manage members, or transfer leadership of the clan. Finally, the clan leaderboard allows you to track your clan’s overall competitive performance in clan matches.


The clan leaderboard tracks each clan’s wins and losses in competitive clan matches

Since the start of EA, we’ve been adding and improving content to make the game more engaging and alive. To this end, over 20 new settlement scenes have been added for you to bring into your domain, with many, many more in the pipeline. In addition to this, 26 new battle terrains have been introduced in preparation for the upcoming battle terrain system that was recently announced. At the same time, all of the game’s existing scenes, and, in particular, the campaign map, have received a lot of TLC in the form of fixes and tweaks, alongside other improvements, like new icons and models.


There’s a number of new settlements for you to conquer and explore

But of course, you need to be able to look and act the part when you are out on your adventures, which is why we continued to add to the already extensive selection of clothing, armours, weapons, and crafting pieces with the addition of many new items.


The game’s armoury has been expanded with the addition of many new armours

Our efforts to further immerse you have extended to other visual aspects of the game too, such as with the various new and improved animations and the many new faction and event themed artworks that have been added to settlement menus.


New faction and event themed artwork have been added to settlement menus

Next, we want to move on to discuss something that is just as important at drawing you into the world as the sights, which is the sounds. In the effort to improve Calradia’s soundscape, numerous new ambiences were added, while existing ones were further detailed. In addition to this, a number of new music tracks were added across the game.

Alongside these, a broader range of selectable voice types was made available for your characters, and missing shouts for charges and retreats were added. Similarly, to further improve the feel of battle, a number of additional shouted warnings were introduced. And for multiplayer, alongside the addition of sound occlusion that we mentioned above, most of the sounds’ audibility has been thoroughly overhauled. Beyond these, there are countless minor revisions all around the game’s audible world.

https://cdn.taleworlds.com/upload/news/mp-a-lobby-khuzait.mp3

Last, but certainly not least, we have the modding tools.

Modders have always played a key role for the Mount & Blade franchise and provide a great deal of joy and inspiration to players and developers alike. Even within the first few days of Bannerlord’s Early Access, you were hard at work to bring your creations to players. And despite not having any tools, you were able to push Bannerlord to one of the top games in terms of mods created and downloaded.


Scene Editor

So we were really quite excited to release our initial set of modding tools into early access after the closed testing, workshops, and discussions with a number of you ended. The current kit includes a powerful scene editor with many tools and a range of resource editors. Together they allow for the creation of many of the same assets that are part of the game - as well as entirely new ones!

Scene Editor Toolset

• Entity Placement Tools
• Terrain Import, Export, and Editing Tools
• Navigation Mesh Tools
• GI Baking Tools
• Level System Editing Tool
• Path Editing Tools

Resource Editors

• Resource Browser
• Material Editor
• Mesh Editor
• Texture Editor
• Body Editor
• Cloth Editor
• Atmosphere Editor
• Skeleton Editor
• Particle Editor
• Model & Animation Viewer

And what better way to celebrate the occasion than with our first big creative contest? There were certainly some challenges with the tools being fresh out of the oven, but you didn’t let that stop you, and even helped to improve the editor - all while creating some truly amazing scenes!

However, with all that being said, there’s still much to be done with the tools, API, and general documentation. We want to assure you that this remains one of our goals and that we will increase our efforts in this regard.



Whew, well that was certainly a lot to get through, even after all the cuts! If we missed out any changes or additions to the game that you personally enjoyed, please make sure to leave a reply in the comment section below to let us know what it was!

And finally, we have a message for those of you that have been following development a little more avidly throughout early access and are more interested in where the game is heading rather than the path it has taken. We felt that trying to squeeze such a big discussion into this particular post would have detracted from both topics, and ultimately, we wouldn’t have been able to give it the attention and respect that it deserves. As such, we decided that we would discuss some of the future plans for the game in a follow-up post in the near future.

Until then, we want to thank you once again for your amazing support throughout early access, and we wish you the best of health.