I spent a good hour last night mapping the keystrokes to my xbox controller and tweaking the sensitivity and such....I almost got it to the point where it was comparable to mouse/keyboard, but not quite.

You get the XP and you get the chance to hire the prisoners away. But ya, no money really involved with a siege.

Has anyone had much luck winning the favors from any of the ladies? Or really followed the exiled rulers plot line? I did one quest for a lady but nothing seemed to come of it.

JUst look for any polearm. Ones with some sort of tip on the end can also be used as a slashing weapon on a horse, which I dont prefer all that much

I challenged a lord to a duel for one of the ladies and won. Ever since I did that I can ask seemingly any one of the ladies anywhere to sway the favor of one of the lords. I haven't made use of that yet, I assume it will just increase my favor with one of them if I feel I need it for something.

I noticed that recently one of the exiled rulers was finally willing to accept my help but I don't really feel strong enough to go try to overthrow a kingdom quite yet. Its definitely something I want to try though.

Last night I was involved in a fairly large scale battle and managed to take a prisoner - a noble from an opposing kingdom. However, I went to the ransom dude in a tavern (which is where I assume you sell these guys?), yet there doesn't seem to be an option to sell him?

I wonder if it's related to the fact that I have him as a prisoner, despite having a party score of 0 for the prisoner rating. In the party screen it lists the noble, but also has the "you need a 1 or greater in prisoner management" message below him.

You can't sell Nobles, but you can ransom them after a a bit of time. A message will come asking for the Noble to be ransomed. If you ransom him, you gain money. If you don't ransom him, you lose Honor. Nobles also can escape from captivity (randomly) and there is no set amount of time that passes before the request to ransom him back to his people.

Stuff like "honour" and (that rating you get for taking on difficult opponents - fame or something?), is there a screen you can view those ratings on?

(found the answer to the above - through the Reports section)

Took part in my first castle assault last night. Was awesome fun, but once I got up the ladder and in the thick of it, I was too afraid to swing my sword because I couldn't tell if friend or foe was in front of me, but had fun picking off the archers with my bow. Looking forward to defending a castle.

I think so far my LEAST favourite thing to do is herding cattle. Not at all difficult, but annoying and time consuming.

There's no friendly target damage, at least in my setup

Hmm, maybe it's in the options. I know that in standard battles I've certainly accidently shot my own men before, but maybe you can't hit allies.

You can shoot allies with your bow, but can't hit them with melee weapons

Same with me. I don't do it at all.

I'm going to read the instruction manual tomorrow in detail.. does it explain how to herd cattle? I had a mission to do that and had no idea how to do it.

I don't remember it being in the manual, but what you do is click on the cattle to interact with it just like you would any other units. There's an option to "drive the herd" or something like that. From that point you get behind them and force them in the general direction you want to go. Staying behind the cattle is the key, and once you see how they kind of go forward in the general direction you want, you just ride back and forth behind them and keep pushing them towards the destination. As others have said above, its fairly simple, but time consuming and highly annoying, once you get the hang of it :D

Haven't read the manual yet, but you do it by first clicking on the cattle, then select the option to herd them onwards, and then basically the cattle will move in roughly the opposite direction to you if you get near them, so you have to steer the cattle towards where you are taking them. It can be painfully slow. I sort of get right behind the cattle and zig zag so I don't overtake them, and it keeps them going forward.

That's one of the things I hated about the game, so I searched on Taleworlds forums and found an edit to fix the cattle herding. Most of the settings are set in text files, and just need to be edited. So I edited it so that when I "drive the cattle onward" they follow me (like caravans do), instead of flee from me.

Some other things I have edited: it is built into the game that each unit has a "ransom" value, but they set the amount at 30 (? 50? I don't remember which). I set it so that the higher level men (Khergit Lancers, etc.) ransom for a higher amount with the ransom traders in the Inns.

That's what makes this game so good, is that it is highly modable.

Link to lots of tweaks, including the cattle fix.

Compilation of 82 little tweaks to the text files to change your gameplay(links)

The cattle fix is most helpful. Thanks.

I'll be curious to see how multiplayer works. It's very difficult to do something like melee combat that requires split-second timing when you have 200+ mS latency in everybody's actions.

Thanks for posting that list of tweaks. I used the cattle fix, added the village elder to the village menu, added the guild chat to the city menu, upped the prestige earnt through winning a tournament to 50 renown, increased the amount that can bet on myself during the tournament by a factor of x10.

Tournaments are a heck of a lot of fun, and a good way to make money thanks to the gambling tweak. I won a tournament in one of the Terghit cities (every stage of combat was with bows - my weapon of choice), and pocketed $30k afterwards. I tend to be crap at tournaments in other cities due to sucking with the javelin-type weapons and the horseback lances.

How long does it take before you start getting castles and things? My renown is at about 350 now, I have a following of 60 men, and my relationship with my king is at around 80. So far I have one village given to me by the king, and that was some time ago. I have helped in numerous sieges (both in defense and attack), yet so far I haven't been able to get my hands on any more property? Is there a particular quest or action I should take to improve my chances?

See the tweaks link again and search for: 4. Change the way kings decide who to give land to.

Basically, there are a lot of things working against you getting a castle. I hated taking a castle and then getting 900 denars for my efforts, so I did a little tweaking. I need to find the tweaks to add the village elder and guild master to the menus.

Thanks for pointing that one out wahoomac. I tweaked it exactly like the dude in the thread suggested, then conquered my first castle solo last night. I requested to get the castle and, what do you know, got it. Default settings seem way off in that regard, though they would certainly slow the game down.

Having castles can be a pain, if they are on the border. You have to supply them with men.

My castle is way down in another territory. It's not a big deal though. I've been training up all my archers/footmen/horsemen to their highest level, and then putting them in the garrison. I have 200ish maxed out troops in their right now, which is handy because I can only have a party size of around 80.

Last night the enemy attacked my castle, and I had about 180 men garrisoned - all me, my heroes, and maxed out troops, versus 500ish attackers, and we beat them off. My maxed out archers were insane, and decimated the majority of the attackers before they made it up the ladders, and when they ran out of bows my knights and guards did the rest. Was a beautiful thing to watch.

I love how easy this game is to mod. Took me about a week total including learning how to script in python (well, "script" in a basic fashion, anyway), a few hours a night, and I've completely replaced the Rhodocks with the Wa, a Samurai-inspired Asian faction. I used the beautiful models from the 'Onin no Ran' mod that doesn't work with the current version, and the thing works a treat. :D

$7.99 on Gamersgate this weekend for anyone that still hasn't picked this up.

I picked this up. I played it for an hour on Saturday and literally got motion sickness while doing the horse training run. That hasn't happened to me since the first Dark Forces came out in the '90s.

I turned on more light, moved myself back from the monitor and played for a couple of hours last night without incident. The game has promise. But I sure do suck at mounted combat.

I suck with anything other than a lance type weapon. With a couched lance you just run slightly left of people and do tremendous damage. Even if you aim poorly you'll likely trample them!

Going to play it a bit today for first time, besides that link with the 82 little tweaks, is there any essential mods i should get?

I think the Star Wars: Calradia mod is pretty sweet.

This makes combat so easy it almost seems like an exploit -- as long as you avoid getting surrounded. What does it say about me that my eyes light up and I cackle gleefully when I spot a foot soldier with his back to me just as I'm nearing full gallop?

When I come in at a right angle to a line of infantry and crash through the whole lot, killing one or two and trampling the rest, I truly understand joy.

Anyone still playing this? I came across it while browsing games on Amazon, and was wondering if it is worth a look.

I played about an hour last week. Still had a lot of fun running around attacking people and palces. Worth it at 20 or less

I keep meaning to launch it again, but then Plants vs Zombies calls a bit louder, and the plants in my Zen Garden start yelling for water, and I'm screwed.

Amazon has it for $7, while the "official" website has it listed for $30 :eek:

Absolutely worth it for $7.

For sure. You could probably get 7 dollars out of it in an hour.

Cool. I read this entire thread after finding out about the game, and the conversation here seems to really pump up the game. It looks good, I am going to try it out.

Thanks guys.

Finally started playing this game yesterday after downloading it a few weeks ago. It is a riot. I love riding a horse by foot soldiers and lopping off their heads with my sword.

Its the exact opposite for me, I dominate on a horse while being merely average on foot. Ive gotten a lot better on foot recently thanks to telling myself I needed practice, but anything other then 1 on 1 and im boned.

I had to start a new game, as I had an army of 150 full Vaegir Knights and we just conquered at will. It was fun for a little while, but battles lost their appeal as my troops simply rolled through opposing armies and castles like clockwork.

Is there a preferred faction in native mode (no mods)? I have yet to see a real difference.

I've been enjoying starting as the Vaegirs, mostly because you get to fight easy looters at the start instead of difficult Sea Raiders.

I have given this a couple of go arounds but for some reason I just can't get into it. I have been doing pretty good in mounted combat, but have still been captured twice. Without any direction, I can't find a starting point.

Your goal is to build up a large army. Your methods for doing this are beating up on bands of brigands, asking lords, ladies, and leaders of villages if they have tasks to complete, buying/selling goods to raise money, and eventually getting in good with a king (by doing tasks for him) and he'll give you a fief to run. When you get a strong enough army you can start taking over castles yourself.

So do you swear allegiance to them then? If so, is there a way to change factions?

Also, anyone know if it matters what faction your men are from? For example, if I am sworn to the Vaegirs, does it make a difference if I have Swadians in my army (i.e., will they revolt or leave my army if we are at war the Swadians)?

I usually swear allegiance to the King of my choice and take on the tasks he gives me as a result, that's how you get a fiefdom. I don't think that's critical though, you can just build an army and conquer castles yourself as well.

As to factions, I have yet to see it make a difference among the foot soldiers, but any "companions" you pick up can have differences that lead to little events you have to settle and possibly drive one or more of them out of the party. I've also had it affect morale if I invite prisoners into the party.

I believe you can swear allegiance to them as a mercenary captain or as a lord. You can leave an oath by talking to the leader of the faction I think.

Polished Landscapes - Mipmap Mod 2 [new screenshots pg.22]

I don't consider myself much of a graphics whore but man do those landscape mods look amazing.

Hell of a graphical overhaul.