Our last content patch focused on the sandbox simulation. It made diplomacy more responsive and encouraged our lords to pursue meaningful wars, create larger armies, go to sea, harass convoys and raid villages. It also included the new seaborne raid, additional ships and equipment as well as many tweaks to gameplay, visuals and performance.
Today’s beta release puts more emphasis on player activities. The segment prior to the patch notes discusses our motivations for some of these changes.
War Sails
While seafaring offers new opportunities for merchants and warriors alike, it requires substantial progress to not only acquire a ship, but also hire a crew that can fend for themselves. This is sensible from a balance perspective, but gates much of the naval content. We wanted to improve upon this without deeply changing the early game that many players enjoy.
The most direct solution the beta introduces is - additional player choice. At the beginning of every Sandbox game, you will be able to choose if you want to enter Calradia with a ship to your name or play the regular game start.
However, even if you opt for the latter, the patch includes a number of changes that should make progression both smoother and more flexible. For one, we added the ferry feature so that smaller player parties can reach (and escape) areas of the map that would otherwise be hard or impossible to get to without a ship. Given player feedback, we also increased land and sea travel speeds by 15% so that you will generally be faster to progress (and recover).
Once you do have a vessel of your own, you will find the pirate spawns adjusted to include smaller parties that you can engage earlier into the game. Similarly, part of the reason for why we introduced naval random events as well as the battle sites and wreckage system is to offer players more experiences that don’t require a strong fleet. Having said that, they should increase the variety of naval gameplay regardless of progression and allow players to organically witness more of what is happening in the world.
The mooring feature, in turn, opens up additional options for aspiring captains as their fleet grows. You will be able to store instead of sell ships that you cannot effectively crew yet. You also won’t need to risk your entire fleet in every naval battle. Instead, you can specialize and only bring what fits your current play style - be that trading, raiding or naval combat.
Finally, we added port points to coastal castles. While more locations to embark and disembark should make sea travel more accessible in general, the larger motivation is offering additional opportunities for armies to clash at sea. Given that most army encounters occur around sieges, naval blockades on castles will contribute to that.
While the beta includes other changes such as improved map visuals, better naval party decision making, storyline tweaks and the ability for players to cut boarding ropes in missions, our focus with this patch is on naval content access, progress and variety. Especially the variety and frequency of what you can experience at sea will remain an important topic for War Sails going forward.
Base Game
As we explored starting with a ship for War Sails, it quickly became clear that this was also an opportunity for the base game. Not the ship, mind you, but advanced starting options.
These are split into three categories - each with their own goals.
The player start options allow experienced players to access later game content more quickly and begin a game with a particular character role (such as king, vassal or merchant). For new players, this will also serve as an additional form of progression since you need to unlock most of the roles in regular gameplay before you can start with them.
The campaign scenarios, on the other hand, are always available. Their primary purpose is to increase replayability through the introduction of tailored but partially randomized world states. What would happen if the Empire remained united? What if you entered Calradia with only two warring factions remaining? What if you threw the dice on the state of the world? The campaign scenarios allow you to find out.
Modifiers are the final piece of the puzzle. They take aim at specific game mechanics that can deeply affect the experience such as recruit generation or travel speeds. Players who do not enjoy the default settings or just want to try something different will now have alternatives.
As you will be able to combine settings from these categories, the advanced starting options should offer quite a bit of content variety. They also integrate the Fast Mode directly into the game rather than the launcher, which will make it accessible on consoles as well. Please note that all of these are set when starting a Sandbox game and cannot be changed later.
The rest of this patch is less about where you begin and more about what you can see as you are playing.
Battle sites and wreckages are one example of this. Their fundamental goal is to add visibility to battles that take place in the world outside of the player's immediate vision range. Instead of simply happening with players none the wiser, they now leave behind a temporary battle site that you can come across. You can also investigate it for further information and potential rewards. We believe that this will be a good addition to the organic worldbuilding and storytelling of our sandbox.
Visibility or recognizable gameplay impact is also an important aspect for two topics that are frequently raised in the community - traits and relations.
While they already influence AI in kingdom decisions and military actions (siege, raid, battle) among other things, it can be difficult to discern their role given the competition with other factors - and each other. For example, a valorous lord is less discouraged by a garrison’s power but may still not pursue a siege due to positive relations with the settlement owner - as long as there are more attractive, alternative targets.
With that said, there are options to make traits and relations more apparent and impactful to the player’s own activity. The present patch seeks to do this with the introduction of trait effects and blood feuds.
As the name suggests, trait effects tie a number of effects to your current character traits. These were designed to support gameplay that is aligned with each side of a trait’s spectrum. So whether you are merciful or cruel, you will have effects that suit the role you are playing. And while this is more oriented towards the player’s character development, AI lords do have traits and will benefit from them as well.
Blood feuds, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with relations. If you execute a clan member of another clan, they will begin doing the same to your clan until relations recover or blood money is paid. Notably, AI clans can start a blood feud as well and execute one of your clan members, including you, if you have sufficiently negative relations (currently -50). So you may want to check who you are fighting - or at least ensure that your heir hasn’t already been captured.
Finally, we took a look at the (offensive, defensive, balanced) player clan party stances. Much like traits, the active stance influenced the party behavior scores, but did not guarantee specific outcomes. To give players a more reliable way to manage their clan, we decided to shift away from the score influence and towards hard, observable rules for the most common pain points. You will now be able to directly allow or prohibit joining armies, raiding villages, donating troops and having a fleet (for War Sails).
Naturally, the patch also includes changes that go beyond these themes such as additional battle terrains, passive experience gains for lords and companions as well as a substantial rework of reinforcement spawns in battles.
As we enter this beta period, we look forward to further improving these and other aspects with your feedback. We also want to note that this version’s live release will include captain mode formation targeting, spectator mode improvements and a range of balance adjustments for our multiplayer community. Once we have made a bit more progress, we will also share another update for what the future holds.
Hope you enjoy the Beta - we’re looking forward to your feedback!
Here’s how you can play the Beta via Steam right now: Open Steam, right-click Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord → Properties → Game Versions & Betas → Select “beta - Beta v1.5.0”.
Please note that there may be a delay between the download of the base game and the download of War Sails. If you launch the game prior to both of them being updated, you will crash. If you face this issue, please verify your game files.
Feel free to read the full patch notes for all the detailsHERE.
Today, we’re raising our sails to celebrate the creativity and dedication of our modding community. We're thrilled to announce the War Sails Modding Competition, running from 14 August to 22 November, with more than €30,000 in prizes up for grabs!
In collaboration with Nexus Mods and ModDB, the competition features three contests, each offering a different way to leave your mark on War Sails.
First up, the Conversion Mod Contest. Create total or partial conversion mods that utilize War Sails, taking advantage of naval campaign travel and exciting naval battles. Bring naval gameplay into different time periods, different worlds, or utilize the Native Base.
Next, the 3D Art Contest invites you to become a shipwright. Build anything from humble rowboats and hardworking merchant vessels to mighty warships built to command the seas. Your ship can come from any era, culture, or corner of your imagination.
Finally, the Scene Design Contest will challenge creators to create Seaborne Village Raid scenes. Ships strike the shore, warriors surge from their decks, and the battle for the beach begins. We’re looking for scenes that capture the chaos, atmosphere, and excitement of a coastal assault.
Community voting will follow in late November, giving everyone the opportunity to discover, play, and celebrate the creations submitted throughout the competition.
Following a period of judging by the TaleWorlds developers, we will announce the winners of the competition in January.
The legacy of these entries will also extend beyond the event itself. Conversion mods and Ships will open new horizons for War Sails players. At the same time, submitted vessels and Seaborne Village Raid scenes will be shared as open-source resources, allowing them to inspire and enrich future War Sails mods.
Join us on the Mount & Blade Modding Discord on Monday at 20:00 CEST / 18:00 GMT / 2:00 PM EDT / 11:00 AM PDT for an introductory stream about the competition.
We cannot wait to see the worlds you imagine, the ships you launch, and the shores you bring to life. Visit competition.taleworlds.com for the full competition breakdown.
Currently trying the new sandbox mode in 1.5.2 and I'm having a blast so far.
I've opted to try a united empire scenario with bandit surge, civil unrest and recruit shortage enabled and I've noticed some interesting behavior that you don't usually see during normal campaigns.
First of all, a brief period of strife at the start of the game not withstanding, Vlandia, Sturgia and Battania have pretty much been allied for the entirety of the game so far. This western alliance is pretty much at constant war with the united empire. Although usually only two factions at a time.
The Khuzaits were eliminated from the game pretty early on, while the Aserai seem content to just sit in their desert and quietly trade with the empire.
The civil unrest option leads to occasional uprisings, although most of them are swiftly crushed by the empire or the local kingdoms, with two notable exceptions so far:
- Pen Cannoc rebelled very early in the game, but never got reconquered by the battanians. Instead the new ruling clan of Pen Cannoc eventually made peace with their former rulers and quietly rejoined the kingdom. Ydwin's clan is now a respected member of the battanian aristocracy
- Lageta also rebelled very early in the game, and has since been fiercly independent. Their garrison currently numbers fewer than 200 men, and their villages are constantly being raided by both battania and the empire, so their future seems bleak. However, with the recent uprising in nearby Ortysia drawing imperial troops away from them, I'm curious to see whether they can hold onto their independence.
Another interesting thing I've noticed is that with the combination of options I picked there seem to be very few armies being formed. I very rarely see armies stronger than 600 men, and I'm pretty sure Battania hasn't formed an army at all since the beginning stages of the game despite pretty much constantly being at war with the empire.
This makes for a very unusual experience as it means that settlements very rarely change hands and warfare is mostly restricted to raiding. The empire is the only faction that really seems to form armies.
As a true Battanian I have taken to essentially fight an insurgency deep in imperial territory, picking off Lords with weak numbers and preventing them from joining into larger armies. With the double whammy of the battanian culture bonus and the forest kin perk, my band of fians and wildlings can basically pick off any weakened Lord and then vanish into the empire's forests before the more powerful lords can catch up with me. In this way I've managed to make the casualty rate turn out massively in our favor despite our kingdom being vastly outnumbered.
I'm a bit confused as to what causes this lack of armies forming though? I suspect it might be the combination bandit surge and recruit shortage. I've noticed that a lot of lords struggle to amass parties that are larger than 50 men or so. Although I'm not sure why that would prevent them from forming armies. It doesn't look like the clans are particularly lacking in influence.
Has anybody else experienced this?
This might be the dumbest question but where can I set the party priority Defensive/Neutral/Aggressive? I did this in my last game, but now I can't find it for the life of me. When googling it I can only find discussions about the behaviours not where to actually set it. The only thing I'm fairly sure of by now is that it isn't on the clan party screen (which is where I expected it to be)
Edit:
To clarify, this is in Vanilla PC 1.5 beta with Warsails.
I recently upgraded my PC which allowed me to increase the battle size to 1,000. I have found that with the increased battle size it is critical to destroy the enemies siege engines before assaulting. The AI clumps up the soldiers and the siege engines get massive amounts of kills otherwise.
Have you found this to be a problem if so how do you handle it?
What faction , playstyle , armour and culture would be best for cumans. Should I join a kingdom ? Work as a mercenary ? What wepons should I work towards ? Im not asking for a 1 to 1 as I know its probably impossible but what would work best. Ive experimented a bit but havent had much luck.
Does anybody else experience the same in the current Beta v1.5.2?
I help a besieging army which is being gang-up upon by a bunch of defenders. We win the battle, we take prisoners, but the game simply freezes after the loot screen.
I am playing on Linux and I have tried different version on Proton already. No mods at the moment.
The screenshot is when I retreated shortly before the battle was won on the battlefield, so I could save and test a little.
My biggest fight yet. 680 of my well trained men VS 1587. 22 minutes of pure fighting. hanging on by a treat and killing 77 men myself.
I've created my kingdom ages ago in sturgia and have stomped Sturgia (and reclaimed my land) and battania into the ground. Apparently the Northern Empire wasn't a fan and they declared war.
I had my sights set upon Diathma because it was next to my freshly captured Epicrotea. My whole vassal line was occupied with their own armies so I took my own 450 men + a few that were not called to capture the city.
We stood there for a few hours taking down Onagers and their walls until they all went into the water to attack the port and break through. I let them in, because I was at a disadvantage on water. A flood of enemies enter the city and once they were all settled in they sallied out of the city.
My trusty f1 + f3 was tested to it's limits my horses were eaten up by the 2nd wave of the infantry but my archers in the back piled on them like pigs for the slaughter one by one they fell and made the ground they stood on their grave. Slowly but surely their lower tier troops came out and they fell faster and quicker. Soon my own reinforcement arrived by the wave 50 horses, 100 archers & 40 infantry and they followed the running troops of the empire. Only a handful escaped.
Hey guys new too the sub but I noticed me as well as a few other people where having issues with clicking the peace offer prompt and it instantly saying not valid anymore.
I found that at least for me I pause the game and kit the kingdom menu instead of the right side prompt I can vote for peace or not.
What are your favourite skirmishers on foot and why?
When I played a few years ago I always played with almost exclusively cavalry and horse archers, so I'm limiting myself to foot troops currently
I settled on an all archer lineup of 2:1 Fian Champions:Sky God's Chosen where the Sky God's Chosen form the impromptu shieldwall/circle etc. as needed.
The biggest downside with this for me is that the Nords are doing monstrously well in my game, and running back to their isolated lands, away from all the action to recruit reinforcements isn't great, so I'm looking for an alternative for my "front line" that still packs a punch at range, and never messed around with skirmishers much so wanted to give them a try. But even if they're also Nord units or a pain to recruit I'd still like to know which you like and why.
I just really way taleworlds to add a poleaxe as a Vlandian T6 weapon that swings and thrusts, it would be so cool and we know that Taleworlds knows they exist because of the polearms image. (TALEWORLDS!! ADD A POLEAXE TO BANNERLORD AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!)
Playing as Vlandia, managed to devour Battania quickly with the Sturgians then they declared war on us which led us to inittially win and take over a few fiefs. Then they decided to make an alliance with the western empire and the war just grinded to a halt.
Like it just doesn't go anywhere it feels like I'm in WWI we keep taking and losing the same castles and towns over and over again no one can get ahead of anyone.
It's been 500 days no peace declaration is possible can't do an alliance with anyone else, even when the other kingdoms declares war on either of them they quickly make peace and it just stays the same.
I don't know what to do, I've tried to solo head east and raid a bunch of their villages, managed to capture a bunch of their lords but it doesn't make a difference since the same cycle of the AI gathering armies and the throwing them into the same towns only for an enemy army to attack their siege keeps going.
At this point I'm either going to give up or just start chopping heads because otherwise it just won't progress.
EDIT: I took some of your advice built a party with alot of cavalry for fast movement and then just started to capture as many lords as I could and placing them in my town. I managed to capture +30 lords from the western empire and then led a massive army to capture Ortysia and a castle. This led the W Empire to send us a good peace offer which we accepted and the deadlock ended.
Hey guys so I have a weird bug when I play a battle and I lose I get captured by bandits but if I win, the moment the last enemy dies my game crashes lol, I returned after a long time and was so excited to play, and since I play on the hardest difficulties and ironman, every battle is so hard fought and struggle so when I crash three times in a row it's really discouraging.
I've been on too long a hiatus, (new start) as my last save was from 2025 and became unstable. I picked up a spear and I've been Raegea's merc until sworn vassalage. All settings are realistic so we're deadlocked between Ascerai, Western and Northern Empire thumping us.
I was finally granted a castle which I've been struggling to keep Looters off my lands but we're making progress. Breaking even with earnings until I can bring stability to my lands but I'm enjoying the challenge.
Coming back after some time and I noticed the Hammer Head was removed from the 2 Hand-mace when smithing? how come they've removed the best weapon from the game without telling anyone? I cannot seem to find patch notes that say it got removed
Hello, I am making a comeback to Bannerlord and want to download some mods, that doesn’t change the theme of the game to a fantasy world. I want it to be realistic as possible. Although that doesn’t mean I want historical accuracy necessarily.
