The Dark Legend

Dear fellow gamers and nerds alike, I have a confession to make. No, it’s not that I have slacked in creating blogs, nor is it that I have gotten lazy at writing, nor is it because I have stopped making my livestreams on YouTube, Twitch, and Rumble.

Trust me, I have been doing all that. Just my return to work from vacation has kept me overly occupied, like a bathroom occupied by someone with a stomach flu.

Alas, it is much more basic than that. And stupid. And frustrating.

Behold, the muse of escapism has ensnared me! Just as many other artists, poets, philosophers, and thinkers of the past have been ensnared by a muse of inspiration! However, they have gone on to make greater works of thought. This is no such thing.

Alack, the one muse that has captured me is Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord for the PC. Also available for other systems, but we all know that PC is the master race of the console wars… if you can call it “console wars” anymore. Seriously, why war over consoles when exclusives mean nothing anymore?

I happened to stumble upon it during my time in Kuwait. This was during Operation: Spartan Shield (yeah, right) under the Biden Administration.

Remember COVID? Remember the lockdowns? Remember when the CDC had to change the definition of “vaccine” multiple times when so many people were still getting sick and dying? Remember when they called themselves “The Experts?” Remember when they exploited the American public with fear-mongering? Remember when they locked the elderly in quarantine, only for them to die? Remember when the government constantly shifted goalposts to push its agendas during the pandemic? Remember when Fauci arrogantly said, “I represent science” and “to question me is dangerous!” Remember the censoring, deplatforming, and character assassinating of individuals who soundly questioned their modes and methods? Remember social and legacy media calling them “Conspiracy Theorists?”

Remember when Russia first invaded Ukraine and, suddenly, the experts on COVID became experts on Eastern European geopolitics on social media?

Ah, the good ol’ days.

Sorry if that got off track. Just those dates and those memories gave me quite a bit of anxiety. And they seared and associated with Bannerlord in my mind and my memory.

Yeah, this was around April/May of ’22. I bought it because friends recommended it to me. One told me of the crazy things one could do in Mount and Blade: Warband, the previous installment. I think it was Warband. I’m not sure if he was referring to that or the original Mount and Blade.

I thought that the concept was absolutely wild, outrageous, and hilarious. However, there was no way a game could be that in-depth with the complexity of role-playing. Could it?

The only game I could think of that came close was Deus Ex. But I wanted to give it a try. Even if it was Early Access. And Lord knows I have my doubts and ambivalence with Early Access.

Besides, I needed a new form of escapism. The everyday reality of deployment wore on me, especially with the ungodly early morning work hours. Seriously, 12 AM to 12 PM wears on you.

The other game I played was Elden Ring. And boy was that a hell of a game to play. Not the best “Soulsborne” game in my opinion, but it was good. Took me 4 days to nail Malenia, Blade of Miquella, who knew no defeat. That was until she met me, The Dark Legend, Writer of The Abyss. And I know no submission. But that’s a whole can of worms for another day.

Anyways, I wanted something new and I gave Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord a try.

To take an indirect quote from an unknown on the Steam reviews, Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is essentially a Game of Thrones simulator. For a better description, it’s technically a role-playing game with battle strategy involved. It’s an interesting combo and concept that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen or played.

You have the option between campaign and sandbox mode in the main menu. What’s the difference?

The campaign contains an annoying main quest with a deadline. Oddly enough, it is optional and doesn’t have a game-over state if it expires.

I play the sandbox to not be bothered by that questline. The only trade-off is that you don’t get achievements. Why TaleWorlds made that decision is beyond me. It’s irritating.

Did I mention you create your character? AND customize their abilities and talents?

That’s right. It serves as an early investment in growth for strengths. This makes your character into a distinct person of interest in this “game of thrones” later.

See what I did there?

The game starts you off at the bottom of the feudal food chain, and you work your way up like working a 9-5, only not as bad. If you’re lucky, skilled, and put in the time, you can earn a lot. You can become the emperor of all Calradia, the fictional continent the game is set in.

However, there’s a problem. The game doesn’t tell you where to go and/or what to do. You’re just dropped in the middle of the continent, and the game tells you, “Go!”

Gameplay mechanics feature a world overview where you see your avatar representing your scrubby, one-man army. You can see the other armies of other kingdoms, too.

You start with nothing but yourself, your clothing, and your weapons. Alongside, you have a trusty horse companion (I named mine Theodoric). Additionally, 1 sack of wheat for food, and 1,000 denars, the in-game currency.

The one thing I discovered early on is that this game can be brutally difficult. It DOES NOT hold your hand.

You start off small and take quests from the locals in villages or towns. This includes, but is not limited to, bringing them tools, delivering a herd of sheep to a city, or escorting caravans for profit. You do all this while trying to avoid gangs of looters, bandits, highwaymen, and more, the same way I avoid OnlyFans chicks.

I bring this up because newcomers will have a difficult time in those first hours of starting. Trust me, I was like that once upon a time.

So, you do quests and dodge bandits the same way I’m dodging spam calls from the CCP. But you realize, like Frodo, you don’t do this alone. You need help to bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear.

So, you hire other scrub peasants, like yourself, and you take them on your adventures. You build up an army, all of this while trying to maintain a budget to pay them. You definitely don’t want them to unionize after all.

Can you imagine the union stepping in for a mandatory 30-minute lunch break when you’re in the middle of a battle against the Vlandians? God help you with that, sincerely. You’ll be wishing you had just filed for bankruptcy.

More importantly, make sure you have enough food to feed them. You give them more variety of food, their morale goes up. A fat army marches on a stomach full of Big Macs, chicken nuggers, and diabetus and cholesterol after all. All of this in a well-calculated budget of a soccer mom, of course.

As you continue, you’ll notice the game encourages you to take your time and plan out how you wish to go about your adventure. This sets a plant-and-pay-off for long-term benefits in the future. Management is the challenge in this game, and turns into a meta-mechanic later on.

In the meantime, you’d better have enough men who have studied up in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Because if they haven’t, not even the Geneva Convention is going to stop the unspeakable atrocities bandits will bring about to you and your party. It can get brutal.

A regular game should be no problem since you can save-scum like me. And I am scum at this game. But imagine playing Iron Man Mode where you CAN’T save. Instead, you get owned and captured by bandits, over and over and over again.

It can be maddening in the early game when you start. Not to mention painful. Like my life.

Help me.

Fortunately, it gets better as you learn the mechanics and understand what the game does. Even now, there are some things I’m just discovering beneath all the bullshit mechanics the game rains upon you later on.

The more quests and battles you do, the stronger your character gets, along with you, the player. Like any good Role-Playing Game, repetition and practice are the keys to success and earning EXP.

The more your character wields and fights with a two-handed sword, the more formidable opponent he or she will become to Guts in Berserk. The more they ride a horse, the more ensconced they will be in the MLP community. The more quests you complete, the more charm and reputation your character garners, like Jake Gittes in Chinatown.

So, you finished some quests! You slowly promoted your troops from Ohio farmhands to New York mall security. You garnered some money to open a small-time fief of a liquor store on the street corner, with an employee who barely speaks proper English because he’s an Aseri native.

You may have even found some companions to fill certain roles in your party as lieutenants. What’s more, you leveled up your clan tier to level 1 with renown and now work as a mercenary for a kingdom.

Well done!

This is where the game really begins.

Once you get that tier 1 clan and become that PMC that you always wanted, you can work for kingdoms. You help them wage war over the territories of other kingdoms and take it.

I did this for a while and founded The Black Bear Caravan, where we would wander the lands and wilderness, seeking the best fighters in all Calradia. We didn’t care about the race, religion, code, or creed. We just wanted the best male and, yes, female warriors in all the land. And they would receive their bounties once the job was done.

That’s right, I was the Big Boss of all Calradia with my Private Military Company of elite warriors and fighters.

That’s when I founded The Black Bear Caravan! The Black Bear Caravan was in business! And business was good!

All jokes aside, that was the dream. Especially the part with those damned Vlandians. However, it wasn’t enough.

There comes a time when every warrior must take off the helmet and let go of the sword. In the natural world, there is no such thing as boundless slaughter; there is always an end to it. At a certain time, a good warrior must learn to settle. That’s what I tried to do for my men.

No war goes on forever, unless you’re Joe Biden.

As much as we wandered the lands of Calradia, it wasn’t enough that we were making a fortune. All we ever really wanted… was a home. It was my greatest wish to give to these great men and women of war: a home. So, I set my sights on creating a kingdom.

And why not? All these other rulers have their agendas. They have their own political games to play and always exploit the lower classes. Including their own troops! They never cared! All they want is to remain at the top of their pyramid!

I say to hell with all that! It was time to give power back TO THE PEOPLE! Thus, I set my sights on making a kingdom for those who have made countless sacrifices for our cause.

After making over 1.5 million denars, after having not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 parties of my trusted lieutenants; after training my men and women to be the best warriors we could be; after making our caravans to garner much renown to have a tier 4 clan… we waited…

We waited for the opportune moment to strike…

Mind you, we never swore fealty to any rulers while we built our army. Because it would go against our purpose to make a free nation of warriors. Equality is the prize. To be a vassal would destroy our own credo. And take note: it’s easier to gain money, reputation, and land as a vassal… But I would be making my men and women subjects. And that was NOT acceptable.

We bided our time, continuing foolish wars for foolish rulers who were completely disconnected from their subjects. And we were damn good at what we did. We earned as much capital for future investments as we could, but it took a lot of time and patience.

FINALLY… after much warring and much battle… an opportunity.

We besieged the town and had to be patient as the Aseri are masters of defense and brass. You don’t mess with these warriors of the desert.

We resorted to starving them out. Next, we knocked down their defenses. Finally, we went in for the final strike. We tried to make it quick and painless in the hopes that we would have more prisoners than casualties. In the end, the city was ours.

Once in our grasp, we set about our next chapter. We were the newest and youngest kingdom in the continent. And what were we called? The Goths.

I expect to see every man and woman who fights for God, family, and this soon-to-be-prosperous country to receive chicken nuggers daily! An unhappy nation is a fallen nation!

– Adam The Great, maybe

Yeah, I know, I’m a history nerd, okay? I love The Goths!

Remember how I said that this game has meta-rules? Well, you’ll notice a pattern takes place when you take your first settlement, or fief. Just like when you start the game, you start small with your small kingdom. Earn the trust of not only the local merchants who can garner influence, but also the everyman and everywoman of the local villages. You look out for them, and they will look out for you.

It’s a principle that I usually practice, even in my everyday life.

Once you’ve helped the locals with their problems, established security to protect them, and introduced policies that help progress your regime, like Don Corleone, you start to find some stability in your kingdom.

However, you’ll notice other kingdoms will act suspiciously like Vladimir Putin eyeing a certain region for the easy pickings due to its small size and the weak leadership of other authority-bound representatives.

*COUGH-COUGH* Biden *COUGH-COUGH.*

Fortunately, I have something that they do not have: A loyal population and army. That doesn’t mean it was going to be easy.

As soon as they start, they will send an army after you. What makes it frustrating is that they will always be bigger than you. Even if you have a party of your 4 lieutenants with 100 men each, they will have 700 to 1,000 men.

Conventional fighting is out of the question, so you must rely on siege battles. Unless you’re the genius, long lost descendant of Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Julius motherfucking Caesar.

And this is where the game makes or breaks you. Depending on how you created your character and depending on how you make the army, you can win ridiculously outnumbered fights. However, the frustrating thing is that you will lose some fights that you think you CAN win. For instance, I can win a siege battle for 175 men against 900. But I cannot win 800 against 2300?

The numbers may not be the exact same, but you understand what I’m saying. It varies based on the RNG nature of the game, which can amount to frustrating bullshit. And that RNG is not just exclusive for fights either. It also affects your chances in wooing another individual to marry. Again, this depends on how you build the charm of your character, which will improve the chances. But the RNG can still be bullshit.

Seriously, the auto-siege option is a broken mechanic. It’s a blessing and a curse, a double-edged sword that is not exactly foolproof. But since kingdoms will always outnumber you, it is the best option you have. It’s the one thing that helps me catch leaders… if RNGesus is merciful.

So, you capture one lord after another, you take a fief from them, then they want peace with taxes included, like the IRS.

Once you accept, you’re set, you’re ready to rebuild and—DAMN IT ALL! The Khuzaits of 10,000 have declared war on you! Along with the Northern Empire!

It gives this endless feeling of sieges, and it becomes tiring.

This is the unhealthy, addictive part of Bannerlord I’m stuck in with fatigue. AND… This is the core of this blog.

Why write millions of words for this? Because this is the feeling you get when you play and want to win. Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is time-consuming. Unless you’ve played it, you won’t understand the investments you put into it to achieve victory.

Can you imagine the feeling of the time you have spent countless hours trying to build an army? To budget their wages? To establish a defense against your opponents? To win the hearts and minds of the people? To have a prosperous treasury? Only for it all to go to ruin?

Here’s a concise example. Imagine a certain point in the game when you have so much territory that suddenly EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE CONTINENT declares war on you. Then, when you look in your wallet and discover you have no money to pay off their extortion of peace, you realize you can’t pay for defenses, the army, the parties, and, most importantly, yourself.

That’s when the left hemisphere of your brain looks at the right hemisphere and says, “I’m gonna lie down.” The next thing you know, your eyes close, a week goes by, and that’s when the peace officers find you dead in your bathroom from an aneurysm.

Shout out to Lewis Black.

That’s when you realize you have no choice but to start all over again.

IT… IS… FRUSTRATING…

The reason I’ve been playing Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is because I want it to work, or I TRY to make it work! It’s the one reason why I haven’t been active.

You’re probably asking, “Adam, why don’t you just quit it? Why not take a break from it or something?”

The truth is, I have and I do. But there’s something about Bannerlord that always brings me back. There’s a sort of stress-relieving, therapeutic feel to it whenever I start the early game. Not to mention the replayability the game has. As I stated, there are still some things I’m learning about it.

The funny thing is that it brings me back for the wrong reasons.

Remember earlier, about a million words back, when I said I was curious to see the deep, complex, role-playing mechanics? If anything, the role-playing is the last reason that brings me back.

I never played Warband or previous installments, and, therefore, I have no standards for this series when it comes to judging role-playing mechanics. However, the role-playing elements in Bannerlord alone are hollow at best, weakest at worst.

The game doesn’t seem to have the ability to interact and make political moves with other characters in profound or complex ways, as I hoped. There really is no opportunity to make fulfilling trades or deals that give you that immersive feeling of being a cunning, weaselly politician, like Hilary Clinton.

And wouldn’t you know it: you cannot seduce lords or ladies at will. Do you realize how much easier it would be if I were to act as a royal consort for Queen Rhagaea? Jebus, even Rasputin would look at me and say, “That’s fucking scandalous, guy.”

Quests are either tedious or deterring. They don’t really give an incentive to accept them when you KNOW what sorts of quests they are. Rewards are never 100% fulfilling either.

For instance, you can try to return an inn to a guy who will pay you 1,000 denars after he lost it in a gamble. But if you suck at the board games, like I do, you will have to pay the guy who swindled the owner 800, which gives you a 200 loss. Or trying to lose time to hunt brigands for a local villager when bandits have 4.5 speed and your party only has 4.3. Or do trades that are just tedious.

You’re just losing time, money, and hope to accomplish a job for locals. Just like my 9-5 job in real life.

Help me.

I remember seeing some videos claiming the community for Bannerlord is dead. There were grievances that the experience was too hollow or lacked features to make it a TRUE Role-Playing, Medieval Game of Thrones simulator. And I think I agree with them.

This game has the potential to have more, and there are so many ideas you can implement. Unfortunately, it seems TaleWorlds doesn’t really have much interest in building a deeper, complex system than what they have. Not to discount the expansion of War Sails down the line, but honestly, I think that should’ve been part of the base game.

Furthermore, it seems the best quality of life improvements or innovative ideas for satisfying gameplay would come from modders.

I have nothing against modders, but I much prefer seeing the ideas implemented in the original game. As much as I appreciate them, a game should not solely rely on the modding community to make it a selling point in the market. It must have a strong core to make it alluring.

I would go FURTHER and say the designers ought to hire modders to integrate the concepts and pay a share for their contribution.

So, if the game lacks role-play mechanics to make it interesting and immersive, why would I use my time on Bannerlord?

It’s a good question.

Despite the flaws and missed opportunities, the game is solid.

Normally, I’m terrible at strategies and grand strategies. However, I’ve always fantasized about being a ruler of a kingdom or a civilization. And that feeling of being a general and commanding an army… There is excitement in that thought. I suppose that’s what it feels like to be Patton.

At the same time, I’ve always wanted to participate in that sort of conquest and create a state where all are created equal, regardless of race, sex, religion, etc. Just as the forefathers wanted for the U.S. There’s also that intrigue of politics that I wish the game had implemented further.

It HAS that potential.

But aside from the hollow role-play elements, the epic battles, and the goal of creating an empire, there’s one factor that brings me back. And it’s an unexpected answer.

Bannerlord… is cozy.

Because the game lacks a story-driven narrative, albeit interesting lore, it’s a game where I can turn my brain off. I can focus on it on one monitor while on the other, listen to music, podcasts, or even ASMR to help me relax.

On the other hand, if I livestream Judgement (great game by the way), I’m supposed to act or participate in some way to engage the audience. And it’s not the same. Because I must shut up, pay attention, and perform a showman role, as if I’m Hugh “The Jacked” Jackman or something like that.

Don’t take it the wrong way, I love doing livestreams for my community, but that’s essentially the problem. My community is nearly non-existent. And it gets quite discouraging when I feel like I’m using up my time when I receive nothing in return.

So, if you want to call it subconscious laziness or subconscious avoidance for playing Bannerlord, take your pick. I know I’m not a perfect gamer, let alone person… but it’s what I do. And I’m aware it’s not exactly a healthy addiction. Especially if it drives you angry when you lose a fight from those ***damned Vlandians when the odds are in your FAVOR!!!

But, out of consideration, I suppose I must take back what I said earlier and admit that it is laziness. And I’ll admit it: I am a lazy bastard.

The game has replayability that makes me WANT to come back and try something new and experiment. It requires investment and makes wins and losses meaningful! And I care for nothing else but winning. It’s like Dark Souls, where the game pushes you to your limits to the point where you WANT TO win and care about nothing else. Unlike Dark Souls, where it’s mostly fair, when you play Bannerlord on the hardest difficulty, the AI knows your EVERY MOVE IN FIGHTING! AND THAT IS BULL—!

Sorry, don’t want to get carried away. And this has gone on long enough.

I suppose this is something I must negotiate with myself. I must give myself some time and space away from it and become more productive, like writing this blog.

To bring this overly drawn-out blog to a close, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been playing a game-focused, role-playing, strategy game rather than one that focuses on story. I felt bad for not making material and thought I’d write about my addiction and make it as amusing, funny, and entertaining as possible. I don’t know how this will contribute to my blog, but hopefully it does.

To be even more productive, I suppose I’ll write a review for the game as a companion piece. I’m not sure. I just wanted to write about something, anything, to post material on my site. And I pray to God that some people out there will read it. And, most of all, enjoy it.

With that in mind, I’ll bring it to a close. Lesson of the day? Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord is good as it is addictive. And I do recommend it to all Medieval fanatics like myself. Just be aware of it if you are going to commit to being the grand emperor of Calradia. Because once you enter Calradia, sometimes… you can never really leave it…