Mount&Blade ll Banner lord
ABOUT THIS GAME
The horns sound, the ravens gather. An empire is torn by civil war. Beyond its borders, new kingdoms rise. Gird on your sword, don your armour, summon your followers and ride forth to win glory on the battlefields of Calradia. Establish your hegemony and create a new world out of the ashes of the old.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is the eagerly awaited sequel to the acclaimed medieval combat simulator and role-playing game Mount & Blade: Warband. Set 200 years before, it expands both the detailed fighting system and the world of Calradia. Bombard mountain fastnesses with siege engines, establish secret criminal empires in the back alleys of cities, or charge into the thick of chaotic battles in your quest for power.
SIEGE GAMEPLAY
Construct, position and fire a range of heavy machinery in sieges that will test your wits and skill like never before. Experience epic, sprawling combat across ramparts and rubble as you desperately hold on to your castle or seek to seize one from the enemy.
Historically authentic defensive structures offer the ultimate medieval warfare experience, as you batter a rival's gate with your ram or burn his siege tower to ashes. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord lets you live every moment of a chaotic battle through the eyes of a single soldier.
DIPLOMACY
Engage in diplomacy, with meaningful consequences that impact the world. Strike historic peace deals that win land for your kingdom or free you to take on a new foe. An all-new barter system gives players flexibility in cementing deals, from marriage offers to treason pacts, offering all the options available to NPCs. Use a new influence system to direct your faction's energies or strangle the aspirations of a rival.
SANDBOX ECONOMY
See the availability of goods ebb and flow in a simulated feudal economy, where the price of everything from incense to warhorses fluctuates with supply and demand. Invest in farms and workshops, or turn anarchy to your advantage by being the first to bring grain to a starving town after a siege or reopening a bandit-plagued caravan route.
CRAFTING
Craft your own weapon, name it and carry it with you to the field of battle! A deep, physics-based system gives each weapon you create a unique set of attributes, strengths and weaknesses. Forge a finely-tuned killing machine to match your own prowess and complement your play-style, or take the sword of your enemy and brandish it as a trophy of war.
MODDING
The engine and tools used to develop Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord are being made available to the community, so that modders can re-interpret Calradia or create their own worlds! Players can now combine different mods, making it easier than ever to play the game of your dreams.
ENGINE
An all-new tailor-made game engine, developed in-house to fulfill the unique needs of the series, offers the perfect balance of performance and graphical fidelity, scalable with the power of your hardware.
Experience Mount & Blade with richer, more beautiful graphics than ever, immersing you in the world of Calradia, rendering the game's magnificent battles with equally spectacular detail.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Battles and Combat Detailed at E3
We are extremely excited to be able to share with you two new videos showcasing our advanced battle AI and deep and intuitive combat system! Both of the battles shown are available as demos for press to play throughout E3. This is the first time we have made the game available to play outside of our office, marking a huge milestone in the development of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. We hope you enjoy them!
LOS ANGELES (June 12, 2017– TaleWorlds Entertainment has released two videos showing an extended look at the large-scale, epic combat in their upcoming follow-up to Mount & Blade: Warband – Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
Key Battle Improvements
Battles are at the very core of the series and play better than ever in the latest instalment.
Key Combat Updates
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord also features greatly updated combat, which builds on previous instalments in a number of ways while retaining its intuitive, direction-based core that made it so popular among players.
In this week’s blog we would like to reach out to our modding community by answering a selection of questions from our official forums which were compiled by a key member of our community, our modding moderator “Duh”.
1. What language will be used for modding?
We are using C# as the scripting language. Data files are generally formatted in XML.
2. Which IDE will have support (like Visual Studio Express) from TW?
You can use any version of Visual Studio 2015 (e.g. Community edition)
3. Can you provide us with screenshots and/or a list and description of the various tools that you use and that may be made available to modders?
Scene editor
Mesh editor
Material editor
Model/Animation viewer
Skeleton editor
Replay editor
Particle editor
Atmosphere Editor
Cloth editor
Path editor
Resource Browser
Also, the runtime performance profile tools that we use will be available for modders. They will be able to check the performance impact of their changes.
4. Will modding tools be made available prior to release and/or as part of an early access?
Not decided.
5. Will we have a TW developer working with the community to support modding (learning, tools, tutorials, feedback, etc.)?
We will share a documentation site and we are planning to make some tutorial videos. Also, we will be taking feedback and engaging with users on our forums.
6. With Warband the list of hardcoded features lessened as time progressed. Will this be the same for Bannerlord as you decide over time what should and shouldn't be hardcoded?
Most probably.
7. Will there be an in-game/engine tool/camera to create FMV sequences?
We will provide a replay editor.
8. Will we be able to launch/select several mods (like elder scroll games) or it will be one module at a time (like Warband)?
The game will support multiple mods at the same time.
9. How will (texture) folder structure be handled? Is it still a single folder like in Warband with all textures placed together or will it have subfolders for things like ground textures, armours and such? And if so will the subfolders name and structures be moddable?
You can use any number of folders for resources but it is a flat system, so we don’t support subfolders within folders.
10. How is the code split between hard-coded (engine) and modsys (open to the modding community)? What level of access do we have to the game UI code, AI, etc.? Could you provide us with an example of what will likely remain hard-coded?
Unlike Warband, the vanilla game scripts will not be directly modifiable by modders. However, it will be possible for modders to add new scripts as plugins and also have modifications for XML data files. In Warband, we had the problem that, whenever we released a new version or patch, almost all existing mods would immediately become incompatible with the new version and modders had to go through the lengthy process of reapplying their changes on the new version’s scripts. Moreover, it was impossible for players to run multiple mods in conjunction. The new system will make modders’ lives much easier and also support multiple mods.
By changing XML files, it will be possible to modify or add/delete most types of game objects such as items, characters, factions etc. Of course it will also be possible to add new assets such as meshes or textures.
Modders will be able to add new campaign behaviours, mission behaviours and quests. Campaign behaviours are executed while the player is spending time on the campaign map, whereas mission behaviours are executed when the player is in a scene. For example, if you want to create some extra bandit parties every few days, you can do that with a campaign behaviour.
Modders will also be able to change most of the formulas used in the game. For example, if you want to add a special item that makes you move faster on map, you will add the item through an xml file, and also modify the formula for campaign map speed so that it returns a higher number if a party is in possession of the said item.
Modders who want to change an existing behavior (like party members deserting when morale is low) will have two options: Either they will modify the default formula, or if that’s not adequate for some reason, they will be able to disable the default behavior entirely and add a new one from scratch.
11. Will we be able to seed a randomized number? This is highly important in order to seed a randomized process and utilize pseudo-data. Is it possible to procedurally generate the terrain/towns/castles/villages/NPCs?
You can use random seeds and any kind of random number generator.
12. How has the Dialogue system been improved? Is the Dialogue system dynamic?
There is a very powerful string processing system, (you can pretty much embed programs into the string itself.) Dialogs, game menus, and everything text related can make use of that.
13. How many factions can this system support? Are there easy mechanisms to create/modify factions?
You can add as many factions as you like. Technically, creating factions is just a method call, but of course making them interesting would be the harder part!
14. Will battlefield AI (Both the troop AI and the strategic AI) be accessible or hardcoded?
Lowest-level troop AI is hard-coded, but you can customize it somewhat by changing aggressiveness, maximum speed etc. You can also give AI target movement points.
Formation AI and overall battle AI is extendable and modders can add new tactics and AI behaviours.
15. Will troop and party pathfinding AI be accessible or hardcoded?
Pathfinding will be hardcoded. You can turn faces on/off in a navigation mesh though, so there are ways to control path-finding behaviour.
16. Assuming that the AI takes into account terrain - will we be able to translate this understanding of the battle scene into a graphical representation? In other words, while you decided against a minimap in the main game, do you intend to provide us with a framework and/or operations that will enable us to generate a simplified visual representation of unit locations, terrain details and possibly even AI strategy?
It will be possible to draw graphical primitives on screen. Also, one can render multiple scenes on the screen for other uses. (As long as they are lightweight, they won’t affect the overall performance that much).
17. Will there be greater control over the core variables and Booleans of the core combat mechanic? For example, will we be able to directly edit the code used for horse charge damage, hit detection, AI movement and so on?
It will be possible to change certain variables, but a lot of constants may remain hard-coded.
18. Will it be possible to alter where the AI aims with ranged weapons?
You can give them an entity to target.
19. Is it possible to combine designed elements with procedurally generated elements into the same scene?
Of course. Script components can be used to add, alter or remove stuff from the scene. Materials, other scripts, physics and polygon attributes can be changed at run time.
20. How does the AI pathfinding work? Will sceners have to create AI meshes for their scenes?
Yes, scene makers will need to create navigation meshes. The scene editor has a tool to create the nav-mesh automatically but results vary and we generally prefer to create them manually.
21. Is there an inbuilt method to voxelize the scene in order to use cheap ray-tracing for global illumination?
No.
22. Are seasonal effects generated or will they have to be manually added? Will it be possible to preview them in the editor?
You can definitely preview what the scene will look like in different seasons and different atmosphere settings in the editor. You can set alternative terrain materials and alternative foliage for different seasons. It’s all very customizable.
23. Will it be possible to make caves/ tunnels in the map/scene editor? Will it be possible to alter terrain during play and/or will modders have the tools to enable/alter such a functionality?
For tunnels and caves you need meshes, the terrain system does not support them. We do not currently support dynamic changes to terrain height-maps during the game.
24. What is the biggest scene the editor can handle?
Depends on the power of the computer and available RAM. Our typical scenes are not too large because we want scenes to load quickly and not take an excessive amount of hard disk space. We experimented with larger scenes on a few occasions but this is not something that’s a priority.
25. Do you think the level editor will support multi-user working? I.e. Cooperative scening over a server.
No. The editor does not support that.
26. How will movable scene props/objects be handled? Will they meet the same limitations as they currently have in Warband (e.g. polycount, collision detection, etc.)?
The physics objects for dynamic rigid bodies will have some polygon count restrictions.
27. Will we be able to simulate the flow of time in a scene without forcing a re-entry? (Morning-Noon-Evening-Night)
The atmosphere system is not designed to update in real-time, so you cannot simulate that without stutters. Maybe you can darken the screen, change the atmosphere and then do a fade in.
28. How will scene files be organized and managed in Bannerlord? Will terrain codes and scene prop files remain separated?
We divide scene files into two groups. One is the editable data for the scene editor (some binary, some text) and the other one is loading time optimised binary files.
29. Is Armour created the same way as you have shown the weapons to be created?
The crafting system only works for melee weapons. Armour, shields, bows and crossbows cannot be crafted.
30. Does this mean that creation of arms and armour now are internal to the game superstructure and if so, does this support independent artists from adding their own weapons and armour to the game?
Crafted and non-crafted items are added in different ways, but modders can add both. For crafting, modders can easily add new crafting parts. They can also add new weapons by editing an xml file only, specifying which parts the new item is made of.
31. Will we be able to add custom skeletons and new bones? If yes, would it be able to support static object bones for real time animations (e.g. destruction effects)?
Yes, you can add custom skeletons to meshes.
32. Any information on model dimensions etc.? Poly count?
Poly count is very varied but we use LOD meshes heavily.
33. Any information on average texture sizes? Will 4k be supported?
Average texture size is 2k. You can add 4K textures to the game.
34. Will every piece of equipment have physics options (tassels, cloth, etc.), including weapons?
Not every piece probably, but modders can add it to all types of equipment. Weapons can have them as cosmetic only, so no flails with cloth system.
35. Will we have access to shader source files?
Not decided.
36. What level of moddability can we expect for the new PBR engine? PBR relies less on the shaders and textures themselves and more on skymaps, screenspace posteffects, and the location and detail of lights. Can we expect to be able to implement dynamic GI, for example? Can we expect GI and SSR at all?
We have good variety of post effects, and you can probably add new post effects. We have SSR. It should be possible to add dynamic GI in theory but in practice it can be very hard or even impossible.
37. Can we force certain body parts/bones to play specific animations and apply ragdoll physics on them? (Useful to simulate various injuries on different body parts)
Sorry, the game engine does not support that.
38. What modelling/viewing program(s) will or should be used for Bannerlord?
For basic polygonal modelling, our artists use mainly Max, Maya and Blender and we will document work flows for these. We also use a ton of other tools for sculpting, painting textures, viewing etc.
39. What tools support animating campaign map icons?
We have some script components, which can add simple looping animations to entities in any scene. It is not as complicated as the animation system of characters in battles.
In next week’s blog we will be talking to Meriç Neşeli, QA Lead and Game Designer. If you have a question you would like to ask then please leave a reply in the comment section and we will pick one out for him to answer.
In this week’s blog we would like to talk about an aspect of the game which many of you have requested we talk about for quite some time now: singleplayer. We decided that the most interesting way to do this would be to discuss different features and mechanics from the campaign in their own dedicated blogs. We hope that, over time, we can touch on many of the key aspects of the sandbox and give you all a better understanding of what to expect in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
In a previous blog we briefly discussed a mechanic which is new to the Mount & Blade series, influence. Influence acts as a kind of currency in the game and can be earned by serving your kingdom in various ways: destroying bandits or enemy parties, raiding, capturing enemy settlements etc. Influence points can be spent to determine the outcome of some faction decisions and to make requests to allied lords. We have already shown you that influence can be spent to ask an allied lord to follow you, but one thing we are yet to discuss is how players can use our new army gathering system to perform this action on a grander scale.
So how does this work? Well, each allied lord has an influence cost based on the power of their party. Players can spend their influence points to summon allied lords to form their own army. It is the leader of the army which gains all of the influence for the army’s victorious deeds, e.g. capturing a city will result in a huge influence boon for the leader, so spending influence to build an army is actually an investment, and sometimes even a gamble. If an army leader can no longer afford to spend influence then the army will start to disband.
Army influence upkeep cost is based on several factors:
When an army is gathered it becomes almost like a moving settlement, with its own UI overlay on the campaign map. The UI shows:
Another aspect of the new army system is that armies use pooled resources to support their campaigns. This means that if one lord brings some food, butter, for instance, then the rest of the army will be fed. Likewise, horses and mules are shared, increasing the movement speed of the entire army.
This new system allows for all lords to call on other allied lords and build their own army. Because of the large influence costs, it is of course easier for a king to do this, however there will certainly be times when some powerful lords will have more influence and money than their liege and will be able to amass their own powerful armies to take on a campaign. It also makes it possible for players to try their hand at army management relatively early in the game, before they have had a chance to climb to the top of a kingdom.
We feel that the new influence and army gathering systems better simulate the historical feudal system. When the player becomes part of a kingdom, they have obligations to their liege. This system allows players to pay for the benefits of being a lord by supporting their liege and fellow lords in military campaigns while building up influence within the realm to serve their own purposes.
In the previous blog in this series, we described how Bannerlord’s new weapon physics model derives swing and thrust speeds of weapons from their physical characteristics. We talked about how weapon crafting plays a role in determining these properties and how this gives players the freedom to create a weapon which will complement their own fighting style. In this week’s blog, we would like to expand on this topic and explain the rest of the weapon physics model, showing how we determine the damage that a weapon inflicts and how that works in the game.
Damage is a difficult concept to get right in a computer game. Making the damage model realistic could be desirable since this can help with immersion and depth, on the other hand, what happens in a real-life physical trauma is incredibly complex and trying to replicate that in a computer model could easily get needlessly complicated with little benefit to gameplay.
While working on the system we made great use of an excellent article at thearma.org written by George Turner. The article was an eye opener about the intricacies and fine points of weapon dynamics. Of course, during implementation we had to make several simplifications and assumptions and if there are any unrealistic elements or errors in the end result, the fault lies with us and not the article.
Energy and Damage
In Bannerlord we tried to come up with a good model that is somewhat based on physics, but is still simple and understandable for players. In our model, damage depends on kinetic energy dissipated during the impact. However, energy is not converted to damage directly as we use several extra steps in our calculations.
Types of Damage
A weapon hit can have three different types of damage: cut, pierce or blunt. These three types have different trade-offs.
Speed Bonus
As our calculations are physically based, we no longer need to calculate an extra “speed bonus” like we do in the previous games in the series. We simply get the attacker’s and target’s velocities and feed these into our equations. This results in a realistic and accurate way where the attack damage is affected by speed.
Impact Point
For swings, damage depends on the location of the impact point on the weapon. When showing weapon statistics in the inventory, we simply show damage as if the attack connected at a point a few centimetres below the tip. During combat we take the impact point from the position of the weapon and the target, so it is not necessarily near the tip. So for example, an axe that advertises itself as having 80 damage can deliver much less if it hits the target near the grip.
Weapon Balance and Damage
Weight and balance of the weapon has significant effect on damage. As we discussed in the first part of the blog, weight and weight distribution basically determines how much kinetic energy accumulated in the weapon’s swing.
Therefore, during the swing, the muscles work to speed up the weapon increasing its kinetic energy. When the impact happens, this energy can go into three places:
Conclusion
Overall, for Bannerlord we strived to create a physics based combat system that will give realistic and immersive results without making use of hidden random variables. This allows players to craft different weapons with individual characteristics and strengths. Hopefully, as players become familiar with the system, they will keep creating new weapons and discovering new techniques and this will serve as a good base to make the game’s combat fun and interesting.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
A century ago, the eastward expansion of the Empire met the great sea of grass in the centre of the continent. Beyond that, with no farmland where the legions could forage, they could conquer no more. They fortified their most recent acquisitions, the great trading cities on the steppe's edge, confident that the disorganized horse tribes beyond the frontier posed no major threat. Khuzaits, Nachaghan, Arkits, Khergits, Karakhergits - imperial officials barely even bothered to learn the names of the various clans and peoples, except when it was necessary to turn one chief against another with a bribe, or remove a rising khan with a vial of poison.
The steppe tribes were well aware how the Empire toyed with them. But they were jealous of each other, and an imperial title, a princess bride, or a chest of gold could give them a slight edge in the endless struggle for prestige and precedence. They raided, traded, took protection money to "escort" caravans across the steppe, and left the game of conquest to the settled peoples. Two generations ago, however, something happened far away to the east - a change in the winds, perhaps, or some terrible but distant conqueror - and the horse clans were set in motion. New tribes pushed westward, seeking fresh pastures. Unwilling to be crushed in the middle, the clans nearest the empire formed a confederacy under Urkhun the Khuzait. They caught the Empire in a moment of overconfidence. A force of legions was annihilated, the trading cities capitulated, and Urkhun's confederacy was now a khanate.
The horse lords now ruled over towns and farmers and counted tariffs and cropland. Urkhun imposed discipline on the unruly clans, forcing them to ride to war on his command instead of simply when they wished. But with the coming of statehood and its burdens, the spirit of unity was lost. Urkhun died, and though his descendants still rule the Khuzait Khanate, the other clans feel that they should be the ones to raise the nine-horsetail banner that symbolizes the supreme authority.
The Khuzait Khanate draws its inspiration from the steppe peoples of central Asia. Genghis Khan's alliance is probably the best known example, thanks largely to the remarkable document, the Secret History of the Mongols, which chronicled the Khan's rise from lone fugitive to the ruler of one of the greatest empires the world has seen. The Khuzaits are based partially on the Mongols but also on their more modest cousins, the Avars, Göktürks, Kipchaks, and Khazars, who were more regional powers than global ones.
The nomads-turned-kings swiftly took on many of the cultural aspects of the peoples they conquered, so that the various Mongol or Turkic dynasties dressed, feasted, worshipped and administered their lands like the Chinese or Persian rulers who came before them. But it's clear that they still fondly remembered their heritage out on great grasslands. Travellers to the Uyghur capital of Ordu-Baliq wrote that the khan built a great yurt on top of his palace, apparently feeling most at ease in the felt tents of his ancestors even as he also enjoyed the protection of walls. We try to make the Khuzaits' settlements reflect this cultural mixing. And for those holdouts who would never submit to a khagan no matter what security or riches he offers, we have a minor faction, the Karakhergits, who keep the old ways.
The Khuzaits' military strength is their horse archers, who combine firepower with mobility. Computer games traditionally have a hard time striking the right balance for mounted bowmen - sometimes they could stay out of reach until the enemy broke, such as when the Parthians wiped out Crassus's legions at Carrhae, but they could also be brought to battle and broken, such as when Attila the Hun was defeated by Aetius at the Catalaunian Fields. There are many reasons why even the swiftest horse archers couldn't just dance away from close combat forever - the endurance of the horses and the supply of arrows, the need to protect baggage and ensure a water source. Usually the horse armies' greatest victories, like Kalka River or Manzikert, ended with a final climactic melee. With this in mind, Bannerlord is working to make control of the battlefield more important, so that skirmishing is usually a prelude to a clash and horse archer armies are exciting both to command and to fight.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
The Sturgian forests are forbidding and cold, but great wealth lies within. Wild honey can be found, and bog iron, but the real prize has always been fur. For centuries, brave traders ventured there to buy the pelts of fox, rabbit and ermine from the tribes of the woods. As the empire expanded eastward, that trickle of traders became a flood. Great towns sprung up on the rivers. Fortune-seekers came from the coast, from the steppes, and most of all from the Nordlands. Tribal elders made alliances with the newcomers, sealed by wedding vows, and with their share of the trading profits hired mercenaries to subdue other tribes. Sturgia became a collection of principalities, then a kingdom, the great powerhouse of the north.
The Sturgians are based on the federation of city-states known as Kievan Rus, located in today's Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Like many boomtowns, the Rus river cities attracted people from faraway lands. Predominantly Slavic communities were forming into states at a breakneck pace and borrowing institutions, religions, and ways of trade and war from their neighbours. Greek missionaries, Finnic foresters, Turkic and Iranian steppe tribes, and most famously the Varangian Norse all left their mark on the aesthetics of Russian art, arms and armour. We think the motifs and styles of Sturgian equipment – gilded and peaked helmets, furs and gold brocade, runes and gripping beasts and folk embroidery and Arabesques -- will make it some of the most spectacular in the game.
As with other factions, we let history be our inspiration for Sturgia's politics. The chroniclers weren't shy about expressing their opinions about the different princes. Some rulers, like Vladimir the Great or Yaroslav the Wise, have come down to us as far-sighted rulers. Others, like Sviatopolk "the Accursed," accused of murdering his brothers, or Vseslav, the sorcerer-king of Pskov, were depicted as some of the more colourful tyrants in medieval Europe. Raganvad, the current Sturgian prince, is cut out of the latter mould: he knows how to punish but not how to reward, and he'll put to the test the old dictum that it is better to be feared than loved.
The commercial ethic was strong in early Rus, with the town veche or council ensuring that merchants had a major role in state policy. Danger and opportunity went hand in hand. A Muslim chronicler recalls how the Rus father of a newborn boy would show the baby a sword and tell him this would be his only inheritance: the blade would have to win all the rest of it. The Icelandic sagas, though geographically very far removed from the Rus, have also been an inspiration for the Varangians' ideal of businesslike warfare and warlike business, the kind of society where a father could say, "Son, you've been lazing around the fire all winter. Time to get up and show you can take some responsibility for your life. Go pillage someone."
The Rus employed both cavalry and archers, but the core of their forces in the early period was most likely formed infantry - also a Norse speciality. We've been working on the close-up foot-slogging side of Mount and Blade. Look out for high-tier AI opponents bashing you with their shield in the teeth, following it up with a blade going into your ribs. Disciplined infantry will be more likely to stay in formation, and will leave a space for a player in their ranks so you don't get crowded too closely by your allies.
Now, the Nords were a favourite faction in Warband, and we know a lot of people are drawn to Vikings - the blood eagles, the shipboard funeral pyres, the berserkers eager to join the feasting at Valhalla. Sturgia is Nordic-influenced but it's not really a Viking state: the Nordlands are off of the map (for the present, anyway) and they wouldn't really form the kind of proto-feudal kingdom that the Bannerlord factions represent. But, if players want to have a west Scandinavian-style play experience, the raiding, the companions, the ring-swords, two-handed axes, Valsgarde helmets, hauberks and raven banners will all be there. Among the Sturgian minor factions are the Skolderbroda, a mercenary brotherhood based on the (possibly legendary) Jomsvikings of the Baltic. The Finnic tribes meanwhile are represented by the Sons of the Forest, a semi- nomadic clan that practices swidden slash-and-burn agriculture in the depths of the woods. At any rate, there should be plenty of allies and plenty of enemies for players who want to win their inheritance with the blade, the Rus way, in this cold land of deadly opportunity.
In next week’s blog we will be talking with Lead Programmer, Cem Çimenbiçer. Cem is a true veteran of the company, having worked at TaleWorlds since the original Mount & Blade! Cem works on a number of different programming aspects of Bannerlord, including AI, networking and combat animations. If you have a question you would like to ask him, please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
They came from overseas, mercenaries and adventurers, speaking the tongues of many lands, taking the empire's silver to guard the frontiers against the unsubdued tribes of the interior. They took their name from one of their first warlords, Wilund the Bold - Valandion, in Calradic - and became known as the Vlandians. Their heavy cavalry, second to none, ran down the Emperor's foes from the Aserai wastes to the distant steppes. But the empire never had as much silver as it needed, and treasury officials soon learned that it could pay its mercenaries with land grants and titles. This was perhaps not the most far-sighted of policies. The Vlandians settled, married, planted farms, and built fortresses. It was not difficult, during the recent interregnum, for Osrac Iron-arm to declare himself king, independent in all but name. He seized the imperial capital of Baravenos and the lands along the coast, and that was how the west was lost to the empire.
The Vlandians are based on the feudal states of early medieval Europe, in particular the Normans, the Norse raiders who settled in France then carved out kingdoms for themselves in England, Sicily, and the Holy Land. The Normans stunned their Byzantine and Muslim adversaries with the fury and discipline of cavalry charges with couched lance which, in the words of 12th century chronicler Anna Comnena, "could pierce the walls of Babylon." The knights combined extraordinary discipline in training for war with the tenacious pursuit of any land they could possibly conceive a claim to. Any grey area in feudal inheritance law was grounds for war. The careers of William the Conqueror, Robert Guiscard of Sicily, or the Crusader Bohemond were one of endless conflict: sometimes conquering more lands, but just as often over the relatively petty disputes of vassal against liege, brother against brother, father against son.
The Vlandians control slightly more territory than the other factions, but we've seeded the ground for a lot of internal dissent among them. The world-weary Vlandian king, Derthert, will have to deal with barons who are more interested in pursuing their own agendas than fighting under his banner. Mount and Blade: Warband also tried to model this "herding cats" aspect of medieval warfare, but some people found the implementation, in which lords could wander off on their own accord, to be frustrating. In Bannerlord, the new Influence mechanism will let the player spend influence to keep large armies of quarrelsome vassals in the field - but that resource is limited.
The Vlandians will have their share of minor factions. As with the Battanians and Khuzaits, these serve to emphasize the origins of the kingdom. For example, players who wish to emulate the adventurers who founded the Vlandian (and Norman) kingdoms can seek their fortunes with the Company of the Golden Boar, mercenaries who are based on medieval outfits like the Catalan or Free Companies.
Vlandian arms and armour are based on that of Western Europe from the 9th to the early 12th centuries. This was a period of relatively fast evolution, and leaves us with some balancing issues. For example, there are textual references to what appear to be two-handed swords in this period, notably as wielded by Swabian mercenaries at the 1053 battle of Civitate, but as far as we know no artistic depictions or specimens. Two-handed swords were a popular weapon in Warband, so we're including them - but we're ensuring they're relatively rare, a hero's weapon rather than standard equipment. There's also come controversy about how frequently crossbows were used in the 11th century and before, but we're erring on the side of inclusion. Their use should help the Vlandians be as effective defending fortresses as the Normans were historically.
The couched lance charge is a deadly tactic - as it was, clearly, on the medieval battlefield. But it becomes much more effective when it's performed by a good rider on a powerful horse. In Bannerlord, we're trying to ensure there's a trade-off between specializing as light or heavy cavalry. Light horses will be noticeably more manoeuvrable but also more averse to physical contact. And even the best heavy cavalry should think twice about crashing into a wall of spears - even the Normans could not break the shield wall at Hastings, instead wearing it down with combined arms and feints. Still, used properly, a force of Vlandians can be a steamroller - just be sure to keep them focused on your enemies instead of your own lands.
In next week’s blog we will be speaking with Software Engineers, Dündar Ünsal and Koray Kıyakoğlu. Dündar and Koray work alongside each other to ensure that the front-end (client) and back-end (server) of Bannerlord communicate efficiently and effectively. If you have a question you would like to ask, please leave a reply in the comments section and we will pick one out for them to answer.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
The misty hills of north-western Calradia are dominated by the Battanian clans, the original inhabitants of much of the continent. Their hilltop fortresses have born witness to countless wars fought to resist outside invaders: first the Empire's legions, and more recently the rising Sturgian and Vlandian kingdoms. They are masters of the longbow, the night raid, the sudden wild charge out of the woods. They idolise valour, but especially like it when mixed with a bit of mischief - the cattle thief who can whisk an entire herd into the fog; the champion who dines with a rival tribe, and, regaling his hosts with an anecdote of battle, produces from his bag the skull of one of their kinsmen that he took as a souvenir.
As readers have probably guessed, the Battanians are inspired by the Celtic peoples of Western Europe - in particular, the Picts, Irish, and Welsh of the early medieval era. So we'd like to take this chance to discuss how history influences our design. Mount and Blade's Calradia is a low-fantasy setting that we think gains from cleaving fairly closely to history. Our physics-based combat system, for example, gives a well-balanced sword or a hard-hitting axe the characteristics that you'd expect by looking at it. A murderous-looking ascent up a cliffside to assault a fort should be murderous in the game, thanks to an engine that gives defenders the ability to rain down rocks and arrows on attacking forces.
Because of this design philosophy, we try not to introduce any social institutions that would be impossible to find in the technological and economic setting we describe. But we also don't mind borrowing a bit from other times and places outside our core setting, the 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Dark Age Celts built some mysterious and majestic structures, like massive roundhouses and complex concentric fortresses, but did not build major cities. By then, they'd been pushed back to the margins of Europe, where big cities were hard to sustain. Back in Caesar's day, however, the Celts still lived closer to the economic heart of the continent and created impressive towns known as oppida on key trade routes. So you won't find an exact archaeological antecedent for our Battanian settlements, which mix later Celtic architecture with earlier Celtic town layout. But we think the result will be both visually impressive and credible, sort of an alternate version of how Celtic settlements could have evolved had history been slightly different.
Lots of our characters, too, are based on history - or legends, at least. For example, the Battanian king Caladog is partially inspired by Gruffydd ap Llywellyn, who dominated much of Wales in the 11th century. He was a very colourful figure, ruthless yet possessed of a wicked sense of humour. He is famous for quipping, when accused of having killed off all his competitors for the kingship, "I merely blunt the horns of Wales' sons lest they injure their mother." The charismatic silver-tongued rogue, who'd steal your cattle and then extemporise a poem about it: this was a bit of stereotype of Celts among the English at the time. It's actually a common view that inhabitants of peaceful but despotic kingdoms held of tribal peoples who had a strong oral tradition and enjoyed freedom but little security. Boastful, cunning, resourceful, but perhaps a tad too cussed and individualistic for their own good -- the Battanians aren't an efficient conquering machine like some of their neighbours, but no one makes war with more flair.
Bannerlord gives us some new features to bring out the uniqueness of its cultures, but we're especially excited about minor factions - mercenaries, nomads and outlaw leagues that have their own agendas that aren't part of the struggle for power. One of the Battanian minor factions is the Wolfskins - a society of young warriors who have left their clans to live a life of freedom (and violence) in the woods. So long as they live 'as wolves' - eating no cooked meat, sleeping under no roof, and wearing no woven cloth - they are exempt from the laws of men. The Wolfskins are inspired by the Fianna, a fighting brotherhood who were the stars of a major Irish saga. It treats them as heroes, but they also have a dark side, extorting money from clans who are interested in mundane things like marriage and crops and don't have time to fight all the time. Simon Young, a historian who wrote a brilliantly entertaining reconstruction of "darkest Britain," AD 500, suggests that the Fianna may in reality have given rise to legends of werewolves. The Code of the Wolf however is our own invention.
In next week’s blog we will be talking with Technical Artist, Gökalp Doğan. If you have a question you would like to ask him please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer.
LOS ANGELES (June 12, 2017– TaleWorlds Entertainment has released two videos showing an extended look at the large-scale, epic combat in their upcoming follow-up to Mount & Blade: Warband – Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
Battles are at the very core of the series and play better than ever in the latest instalment.
- Advanced Formations – Merge and split forces at your behest, with intuitive but powerful control over the movement, form and behavior of every unit! Order heavy infantry to hold together, shoulder-to-shoulder in a slowly advancing but near impenetrable shield wall; or launch your cavalry in lightning charges using the skein formation.
- Battlefield AI – AI commanders can execute complex tactics, utilizing the advanced formation options to present a formidable challenge. Their behavior is drawn from actual historical tacticians, for example Alexander the great, who used his superior cavalry forces to rout their counterparts in the opposing army, before delivering a crushing blow to the enemy’s main force. This not only creates the feeling of an authentic medieval battle but also proves effective in-game, as in reality.
- Sergeant System – Commanders now designate units to other lords in battle, including the player! Execute the orders issued by your commander throughout the fight, and use your own instincts to do your part and help secure victory on the field of battle. Lead the horse archers as they skirmish and harass the enemy to disrupt their lines before your allies finish them off, or take control of the cavalry and charge into the fray to devastate entire units at once!
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord also features greatly updated combat, which builds on previous instalments in a number of ways while retaining its intuitive, direction-based core that made it so popular among players.
- Directional Shield Blocking and Shield Bash – These two features revitalize the sword & board gameplay, making it a more engaging experience than ever before! Blocking in the wrong direction will not necessarily get you killed but it will cause your shield to break faster, leaving you defenseless against missiles and vulnerable against multiple foes. Shield bashing, a highly requested feature, temporarily stuns your opponent and knocks them back, lowering their defenses and giving you room to breathe.
- Attack Chaining – Swings that complete their motion can now be chained into follow-up attacks which can catch your opponent off-guard after a miss. Unbalanced weapons such as hammers and axes also use the momentum of the first swing for a faster follow-up!
- Improved Animations and Combat Engine – Huge effort has gone into making Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord’s combat as fluid and visually appealing as possible. Damage dealt is now calculated with a great degree of physical depth, factoring in the weight distribution of every individual weapon. This means that whether you are executing a perfectly timed thrust while thundering towards a hapless archer on horseback or shooting an arrow across the battlefield to whittle down your opponent’s infantry forces before the melee, the game will understand all of the forces involved and produce consistent, realistic and satisfying results every time.
“It is great to be back at E3 with Bannerlord, demonstrating the best Mount & Blade battles ever. Our team worked very hard on developing all aspects of the battles, which are so central to the game. We are thrilled to showcase our work and looking forward to seeing the response.”
Armagan Yavuz – CEO / Founder, TaleWorld
Mods have always been a huge part of the Mount & Blade experience. Over the years, our talented and dedicated modding community has created some amazing mods which have expanded on concepts and features in our game, such as Diplomacy and Pre-Battle Orders and Deployment, or completely overhauled the game to create unique and engaging gaming experiences, such as Brytenwalda and Prophecy of Pendor. Some of them have brought RPG elements and character progression into a multiplayer setting, (Persistent World, cRPG) while others are just plain silly and fun, (Gangs of Glasgow).Armagan Yavuz – CEO / Founder, TaleWorld
In this week’s blog we would like to reach out to our modding community by answering a selection of questions from our official forums which were compiled by a key member of our community, our modding moderator “Duh”.
1. What language will be used for modding?
We are using C# as the scripting language. Data files are generally formatted in XML.
2. Which IDE will have support (like Visual Studio Express) from TW?
You can use any version of Visual Studio 2015 (e.g. Community edition)
3. Can you provide us with screenshots and/or a list and description of the various tools that you use and that may be made available to modders?
Scene editor
Mesh editor
Material editor
Model/Animation viewer
Skeleton editor
Replay editor
Particle editor
Atmosphere Editor
Cloth editor
Path editor
Resource Browser
Also, the runtime performance profile tools that we use will be available for modders. They will be able to check the performance impact of their changes.
Cloth Editor
4. Will modding tools be made available prior to release and/or as part of an early access?
Not decided.
5. Will we have a TW developer working with the community to support modding (learning, tools, tutorials, feedback, etc.)?
We will share a documentation site and we are planning to make some tutorial videos. Also, we will be taking feedback and engaging with users on our forums.
6. With Warband the list of hardcoded features lessened as time progressed. Will this be the same for Bannerlord as you decide over time what should and shouldn't be hardcoded?
Most probably.
7. Will there be an in-game/engine tool/camera to create FMV sequences?
We will provide a replay editor.
8. Will we be able to launch/select several mods (like elder scroll games) or it will be one module at a time (like Warband)?
The game will support multiple mods at the same time.
9. How will (texture) folder structure be handled? Is it still a single folder like in Warband with all textures placed together or will it have subfolders for things like ground textures, armours and such? And if so will the subfolders name and structures be moddable?
You can use any number of folders for resources but it is a flat system, so we don’t support subfolders within folders.
10. How is the code split between hard-coded (engine) and modsys (open to the modding community)? What level of access do we have to the game UI code, AI, etc.? Could you provide us with an example of what will likely remain hard-coded?
Unlike Warband, the vanilla game scripts will not be directly modifiable by modders. However, it will be possible for modders to add new scripts as plugins and also have modifications for XML data files. In Warband, we had the problem that, whenever we released a new version or patch, almost all existing mods would immediately become incompatible with the new version and modders had to go through the lengthy process of reapplying their changes on the new version’s scripts. Moreover, it was impossible for players to run multiple mods in conjunction. The new system will make modders’ lives much easier and also support multiple mods.
By changing XML files, it will be possible to modify or add/delete most types of game objects such as items, characters, factions etc. Of course it will also be possible to add new assets such as meshes or textures.
Modders will be able to add new campaign behaviours, mission behaviours and quests. Campaign behaviours are executed while the player is spending time on the campaign map, whereas mission behaviours are executed when the player is in a scene. For example, if you want to create some extra bandit parties every few days, you can do that with a campaign behaviour.
Modders will also be able to change most of the formulas used in the game. For example, if you want to add a special item that makes you move faster on map, you will add the item through an xml file, and also modify the formula for campaign map speed so that it returns a higher number if a party is in possession of the said item.
Modders who want to change an existing behavior (like party members deserting when morale is low) will have two options: Either they will modify the default formula, or if that’s not adequate for some reason, they will be able to disable the default behavior entirely and add a new one from scratch.
11. Will we be able to seed a randomized number? This is highly important in order to seed a randomized process and utilize pseudo-data. Is it possible to procedurally generate the terrain/towns/castles/villages/NPCs?
You can use random seeds and any kind of random number generator.
12. How has the Dialogue system been improved? Is the Dialogue system dynamic?
There is a very powerful string processing system, (you can pretty much embed programs into the string itself.) Dialogs, game menus, and everything text related can make use of that.
13. How many factions can this system support? Are there easy mechanisms to create/modify factions?
You can add as many factions as you like. Technically, creating factions is just a method call, but of course making them interesting would be the harder part!
14. Will battlefield AI (Both the troop AI and the strategic AI) be accessible or hardcoded?
Lowest-level troop AI is hard-coded, but you can customize it somewhat by changing aggressiveness, maximum speed etc. You can also give AI target movement points.
Formation AI and overall battle AI is extendable and modders can add new tactics and AI behaviours.
15. Will troop and party pathfinding AI be accessible or hardcoded?
Pathfinding will be hardcoded. You can turn faces on/off in a navigation mesh though, so there are ways to control path-finding behaviour.
Scene Editor
16. Assuming that the AI takes into account terrain - will we be able to translate this understanding of the battle scene into a graphical representation? In other words, while you decided against a minimap in the main game, do you intend to provide us with a framework and/or operations that will enable us to generate a simplified visual representation of unit locations, terrain details and possibly even AI strategy?
It will be possible to draw graphical primitives on screen. Also, one can render multiple scenes on the screen for other uses. (As long as they are lightweight, they won’t affect the overall performance that much).
17. Will there be greater control over the core variables and Booleans of the core combat mechanic? For example, will we be able to directly edit the code used for horse charge damage, hit detection, AI movement and so on?
It will be possible to change certain variables, but a lot of constants may remain hard-coded.
18. Will it be possible to alter where the AI aims with ranged weapons?
You can give them an entity to target.
19. Is it possible to combine designed elements with procedurally generated elements into the same scene?
Of course. Script components can be used to add, alter or remove stuff from the scene. Materials, other scripts, physics and polygon attributes can be changed at run time.
20. How does the AI pathfinding work? Will sceners have to create AI meshes for their scenes?
Yes, scene makers will need to create navigation meshes. The scene editor has a tool to create the nav-mesh automatically but results vary and we generally prefer to create them manually.
21. Is there an inbuilt method to voxelize the scene in order to use cheap ray-tracing for global illumination?
No.
22. Are seasonal effects generated or will they have to be manually added? Will it be possible to preview them in the editor?
You can definitely preview what the scene will look like in different seasons and different atmosphere settings in the editor. You can set alternative terrain materials and alternative foliage for different seasons. It’s all very customizable.
23. Will it be possible to make caves/ tunnels in the map/scene editor? Will it be possible to alter terrain during play and/or will modders have the tools to enable/alter such a functionality?
For tunnels and caves you need meshes, the terrain system does not support them. We do not currently support dynamic changes to terrain height-maps during the game.
24. What is the biggest scene the editor can handle?
Depends on the power of the computer and available RAM. Our typical scenes are not too large because we want scenes to load quickly and not take an excessive amount of hard disk space. We experimented with larger scenes on a few occasions but this is not something that’s a priority.
25. Do you think the level editor will support multi-user working? I.e. Cooperative scening over a server.
No. The editor does not support that.
26. How will movable scene props/objects be handled? Will they meet the same limitations as they currently have in Warband (e.g. polycount, collision detection, etc.)?
The physics objects for dynamic rigid bodies will have some polygon count restrictions.
27. Will we be able to simulate the flow of time in a scene without forcing a re-entry? (Morning-Noon-Evening-Night)
The atmosphere system is not designed to update in real-time, so you cannot simulate that without stutters. Maybe you can darken the screen, change the atmosphere and then do a fade in.
28. How will scene files be organized and managed in Bannerlord? Will terrain codes and scene prop files remain separated?
We divide scene files into two groups. One is the editable data for the scene editor (some binary, some text) and the other one is loading time optimised binary files.
29. Is Armour created the same way as you have shown the weapons to be created?
The crafting system only works for melee weapons. Armour, shields, bows and crossbows cannot be crafted.
30. Does this mean that creation of arms and armour now are internal to the game superstructure and if so, does this support independent artists from adding their own weapons and armour to the game?
Crafted and non-crafted items are added in different ways, but modders can add both. For crafting, modders can easily add new crafting parts. They can also add new weapons by editing an xml file only, specifying which parts the new item is made of.
31. Will we be able to add custom skeletons and new bones? If yes, would it be able to support static object bones for real time animations (e.g. destruction effects)?
Yes, you can add custom skeletons to meshes.
32. Any information on model dimensions etc.? Poly count?
Poly count is very varied but we use LOD meshes heavily.
33. Any information on average texture sizes? Will 4k be supported?
Average texture size is 2k. You can add 4K textures to the game.
Model / Animation Viewer
34. Will every piece of equipment have physics options (tassels, cloth, etc.), including weapons?
Not every piece probably, but modders can add it to all types of equipment. Weapons can have them as cosmetic only, so no flails with cloth system.
35. Will we have access to shader source files?
Not decided.
36. What level of moddability can we expect for the new PBR engine? PBR relies less on the shaders and textures themselves and more on skymaps, screenspace posteffects, and the location and detail of lights. Can we expect to be able to implement dynamic GI, for example? Can we expect GI and SSR at all?
We have good variety of post effects, and you can probably add new post effects. We have SSR. It should be possible to add dynamic GI in theory but in practice it can be very hard or even impossible.
37. Can we force certain body parts/bones to play specific animations and apply ragdoll physics on them? (Useful to simulate various injuries on different body parts)
Sorry, the game engine does not support that.
38. What modelling/viewing program(s) will or should be used for Bannerlord?
For basic polygonal modelling, our artists use mainly Max, Maya and Blender and we will document work flows for these. We also use a ton of other tools for sculpting, painting textures, viewing etc.
39. What tools support animating campaign map icons?
We have some script components, which can add simple looping animations to entities in any scene. It is not as complicated as the animation system of characters in battles.
In next week’s blog we will be talking to Meriç Neşeli, QA Lead and Game Designer. If you have a question you would like to ask then please leave a reply in the comment section and we will pick one out for him to answer.
In this week’s blog we would like to talk about an aspect of the game which many of you have requested we talk about for quite some time now: singleplayer. We decided that the most interesting way to do this would be to discuss different features and mechanics from the campaign in their own dedicated blogs. We hope that, over time, we can touch on many of the key aspects of the sandbox and give you all a better understanding of what to expect in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
In a previous blog we briefly discussed a mechanic which is new to the Mount & Blade series, influence. Influence acts as a kind of currency in the game and can be earned by serving your kingdom in various ways: destroying bandits or enemy parties, raiding, capturing enemy settlements etc. Influence points can be spent to determine the outcome of some faction decisions and to make requests to allied lords. We have already shown you that influence can be spent to ask an allied lord to follow you, but one thing we are yet to discuss is how players can use our new army gathering system to perform this action on a grander scale.
So how does this work? Well, each allied lord has an influence cost based on the power of their party. Players can spend their influence points to summon allied lords to form their own army. It is the leader of the army which gains all of the influence for the army’s victorious deeds, e.g. capturing a city will result in a huge influence boon for the leader, so spending influence to build an army is actually an investment, and sometimes even a gamble. If an army leader can no longer afford to spend influence then the army will start to disband.
Army influence upkeep cost is based on several factors:
- If the army morale is high, then upkeep costs are lower (and vice versa)
- Distance from their hometowns, how long they have been fighting etc.
- Relations between the army commander and lords
When an army is gathered it becomes almost like a moving settlement, with its own UI overlay on the campaign map. The UI shows:
- Army morale
- Lords and their parties
- Food supplies
- Marching speed (players can see factors affecting the marching speed from a tooltip)
Another aspect of the new army system is that armies use pooled resources to support their campaigns. This means that if one lord brings some food, butter, for instance, then the rest of the army will be fed. Likewise, horses and mules are shared, increasing the movement speed of the entire army.
This new system allows for all lords to call on other allied lords and build their own army. Because of the large influence costs, it is of course easier for a king to do this, however there will certainly be times when some powerful lords will have more influence and money than their liege and will be able to amass their own powerful armies to take on a campaign. It also makes it possible for players to try their hand at army management relatively early in the game, before they have had a chance to climb to the top of a kingdom.
We feel that the new influence and army gathering systems better simulate the historical feudal system. When the player becomes part of a kingdom, they have obligations to their liege. This system allows players to pay for the benefits of being a lord by supporting their liege and fellow lords in military campaigns while building up influence within the realm to serve their own purposes.
In the previous blog in this series, we described how Bannerlord’s new weapon physics model derives swing and thrust speeds of weapons from their physical characteristics. We talked about how weapon crafting plays a role in determining these properties and how this gives players the freedom to create a weapon which will complement their own fighting style. In this week’s blog, we would like to expand on this topic and explain the rest of the weapon physics model, showing how we determine the damage that a weapon inflicts and how that works in the game.
Damage is a difficult concept to get right in a computer game. Making the damage model realistic could be desirable since this can help with immersion and depth, on the other hand, what happens in a real-life physical trauma is incredibly complex and trying to replicate that in a computer model could easily get needlessly complicated with little benefit to gameplay.
While working on the system we made great use of an excellent article at thearma.org written by George Turner. The article was an eye opener about the intricacies and fine points of weapon dynamics. Of course, during implementation we had to make several simplifications and assumptions and if there are any unrealistic elements or errors in the end result, the fault lies with us and not the article.
Energy and Damage
In Bannerlord we tried to come up with a good model that is somewhat based on physics, but is still simple and understandable for players. In our model, damage depends on kinetic energy dissipated during the impact. However, energy is not converted to damage directly as we use several extra steps in our calculations.
Types of Damage
A weapon hit can have three different types of damage: cut, pierce or blunt. These three types have different trade-offs.
- A cutting weapon is most efficient in converting kinetic energy of the weapon into hit-point damage. However, it is also least effective against armour.
- Blunt weapons may require more hits for taking down an opponent, however, they make up for this by being least affected by armour.
- Piercing weapons sit somewhat between cutting and blunt weapons.
Speed Bonus
As our calculations are physically based, we no longer need to calculate an extra “speed bonus” like we do in the previous games in the series. We simply get the attacker’s and target’s velocities and feed these into our equations. This results in a realistic and accurate way where the attack damage is affected by speed.
Impact Point
For swings, damage depends on the location of the impact point on the weapon. When showing weapon statistics in the inventory, we simply show damage as if the attack connected at a point a few centimetres below the tip. During combat we take the impact point from the position of the weapon and the target, so it is not necessarily near the tip. So for example, an axe that advertises itself as having 80 damage can deliver much less if it hits the target near the grip.
Weapon Balance and Damage
Weight and balance of the weapon has significant effect on damage. As we discussed in the first part of the blog, weight and weight distribution basically determines how much kinetic energy accumulated in the weapon’s swing.
- Lighter weapons are faster and more agile.
- Heavier weapons can take more time to connect, but this gives more time to increase their energy making them more powerful.
Therefore, during the swing, the muscles work to speed up the weapon increasing its kinetic energy. When the impact happens, this energy can go into three places:
- Some of the energy will stay with the weapon since the weapon will not necessarily come to a complete stop.
- A significant portion of the energy will go into the impact with the victim. This is the part of the energy which does the useful stuff that a weapon is supposed to do (inflict damage!). As the attacker, you will generally want this to be as high as possible. Hitting the opponent at an optimal point may ensure that more of the energy goes to the impact rather than being retained by the weapon.
- Lastly, a portion of the energy will go to kicking-back the attacker’s hand(s). Not only does this do nothing to the opponent, but it also affects the attacker adversely. In the game, we model this with an “attacker stun”, which means that weapons with high kick-back will make you unable to attack again for a short while after your current attack connects or is blocked. An interesting note is that a pommel with the right weight will reduce kick-back, much like a making a gun heavier will reduce recoil, ensuring that energy goes to the bullet rather than the shooter’s hand.
Conclusion
Overall, for Bannerlord we strived to create a physics based combat system that will give realistic and immersive results without making use of hidden random variables. This allows players to craft different weapons with individual characteristics and strengths. Hopefully, as players become familiar with the system, they will keep creating new weapons and discovering new techniques and this will serve as a good base to make the game’s combat fun and interesting.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
A century ago, the eastward expansion of the Empire met the great sea of grass in the centre of the continent. Beyond that, with no farmland where the legions could forage, they could conquer no more. They fortified their most recent acquisitions, the great trading cities on the steppe's edge, confident that the disorganized horse tribes beyond the frontier posed no major threat. Khuzaits, Nachaghan, Arkits, Khergits, Karakhergits - imperial officials barely even bothered to learn the names of the various clans and peoples, except when it was necessary to turn one chief against another with a bribe, or remove a rising khan with a vial of poison.
The steppe tribes were well aware how the Empire toyed with them. But they were jealous of each other, and an imperial title, a princess bride, or a chest of gold could give them a slight edge in the endless struggle for prestige and precedence. They raided, traded, took protection money to "escort" caravans across the steppe, and left the game of conquest to the settled peoples. Two generations ago, however, something happened far away to the east - a change in the winds, perhaps, or some terrible but distant conqueror - and the horse clans were set in motion. New tribes pushed westward, seeking fresh pastures. Unwilling to be crushed in the middle, the clans nearest the empire formed a confederacy under Urkhun the Khuzait. They caught the Empire in a moment of overconfidence. A force of legions was annihilated, the trading cities capitulated, and Urkhun's confederacy was now a khanate.
The horse lords now ruled over towns and farmers and counted tariffs and cropland. Urkhun imposed discipline on the unruly clans, forcing them to ride to war on his command instead of simply when they wished. But with the coming of statehood and its burdens, the spirit of unity was lost. Urkhun died, and though his descendants still rule the Khuzait Khanate, the other clans feel that they should be the ones to raise the nine-horsetail banner that symbolizes the supreme authority.
The Khuzait Khanate draws its inspiration from the steppe peoples of central Asia. Genghis Khan's alliance is probably the best known example, thanks largely to the remarkable document, the Secret History of the Mongols, which chronicled the Khan's rise from lone fugitive to the ruler of one of the greatest empires the world has seen. The Khuzaits are based partially on the Mongols but also on their more modest cousins, the Avars, Göktürks, Kipchaks, and Khazars, who were more regional powers than global ones.
The nomads-turned-kings swiftly took on many of the cultural aspects of the peoples they conquered, so that the various Mongol or Turkic dynasties dressed, feasted, worshipped and administered their lands like the Chinese or Persian rulers who came before them. But it's clear that they still fondly remembered their heritage out on great grasslands. Travellers to the Uyghur capital of Ordu-Baliq wrote that the khan built a great yurt on top of his palace, apparently feeling most at ease in the felt tents of his ancestors even as he also enjoyed the protection of walls. We try to make the Khuzaits' settlements reflect this cultural mixing. And for those holdouts who would never submit to a khagan no matter what security or riches he offers, we have a minor faction, the Karakhergits, who keep the old ways.
The Khuzaits' military strength is their horse archers, who combine firepower with mobility. Computer games traditionally have a hard time striking the right balance for mounted bowmen - sometimes they could stay out of reach until the enemy broke, such as when the Parthians wiped out Crassus's legions at Carrhae, but they could also be brought to battle and broken, such as when Attila the Hun was defeated by Aetius at the Catalaunian Fields. There are many reasons why even the swiftest horse archers couldn't just dance away from close combat forever - the endurance of the horses and the supply of arrows, the need to protect baggage and ensure a water source. Usually the horse armies' greatest victories, like Kalka River or Manzikert, ended with a final climactic melee. With this in mind, Bannerlord is working to make control of the battlefield more important, so that skirmishing is usually a prelude to a clash and horse archer armies are exciting both to command and to fight.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
The Sturgian forests are forbidding and cold, but great wealth lies within. Wild honey can be found, and bog iron, but the real prize has always been fur. For centuries, brave traders ventured there to buy the pelts of fox, rabbit and ermine from the tribes of the woods. As the empire expanded eastward, that trickle of traders became a flood. Great towns sprung up on the rivers. Fortune-seekers came from the coast, from the steppes, and most of all from the Nordlands. Tribal elders made alliances with the newcomers, sealed by wedding vows, and with their share of the trading profits hired mercenaries to subdue other tribes. Sturgia became a collection of principalities, then a kingdom, the great powerhouse of the north.
The Sturgians are based on the federation of city-states known as Kievan Rus, located in today's Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Like many boomtowns, the Rus river cities attracted people from faraway lands. Predominantly Slavic communities were forming into states at a breakneck pace and borrowing institutions, religions, and ways of trade and war from their neighbours. Greek missionaries, Finnic foresters, Turkic and Iranian steppe tribes, and most famously the Varangian Norse all left their mark on the aesthetics of Russian art, arms and armour. We think the motifs and styles of Sturgian equipment – gilded and peaked helmets, furs and gold brocade, runes and gripping beasts and folk embroidery and Arabesques -- will make it some of the most spectacular in the game.
As with other factions, we let history be our inspiration for Sturgia's politics. The chroniclers weren't shy about expressing their opinions about the different princes. Some rulers, like Vladimir the Great or Yaroslav the Wise, have come down to us as far-sighted rulers. Others, like Sviatopolk "the Accursed," accused of murdering his brothers, or Vseslav, the sorcerer-king of Pskov, were depicted as some of the more colourful tyrants in medieval Europe. Raganvad, the current Sturgian prince, is cut out of the latter mould: he knows how to punish but not how to reward, and he'll put to the test the old dictum that it is better to be feared than loved.
The commercial ethic was strong in early Rus, with the town veche or council ensuring that merchants had a major role in state policy. Danger and opportunity went hand in hand. A Muslim chronicler recalls how the Rus father of a newborn boy would show the baby a sword and tell him this would be his only inheritance: the blade would have to win all the rest of it. The Icelandic sagas, though geographically very far removed from the Rus, have also been an inspiration for the Varangians' ideal of businesslike warfare and warlike business, the kind of society where a father could say, "Son, you've been lazing around the fire all winter. Time to get up and show you can take some responsibility for your life. Go pillage someone."
The Rus employed both cavalry and archers, but the core of their forces in the early period was most likely formed infantry - also a Norse speciality. We've been working on the close-up foot-slogging side of Mount and Blade. Look out for high-tier AI opponents bashing you with their shield in the teeth, following it up with a blade going into your ribs. Disciplined infantry will be more likely to stay in formation, and will leave a space for a player in their ranks so you don't get crowded too closely by your allies.
Now, the Nords were a favourite faction in Warband, and we know a lot of people are drawn to Vikings - the blood eagles, the shipboard funeral pyres, the berserkers eager to join the feasting at Valhalla. Sturgia is Nordic-influenced but it's not really a Viking state: the Nordlands are off of the map (for the present, anyway) and they wouldn't really form the kind of proto-feudal kingdom that the Bannerlord factions represent. But, if players want to have a west Scandinavian-style play experience, the raiding, the companions, the ring-swords, two-handed axes, Valsgarde helmets, hauberks and raven banners will all be there. Among the Sturgian minor factions are the Skolderbroda, a mercenary brotherhood based on the (possibly legendary) Jomsvikings of the Baltic. The Finnic tribes meanwhile are represented by the Sons of the Forest, a semi- nomadic clan that practices swidden slash-and-burn agriculture in the depths of the woods. At any rate, there should be plenty of allies and plenty of enemies for players who want to win their inheritance with the blade, the Rus way, in this cold land of deadly opportunity.
In next week’s blog we will be talking with Lead Programmer, Cem Çimenbiçer. Cem is a true veteran of the company, having worked at TaleWorlds since the original Mount & Blade! Cem works on a number of different programming aspects of Bannerlord, including AI, networking and combat animations. If you have a question you would like to ask him, please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
They came from overseas, mercenaries and adventurers, speaking the tongues of many lands, taking the empire's silver to guard the frontiers against the unsubdued tribes of the interior. They took their name from one of their first warlords, Wilund the Bold - Valandion, in Calradic - and became known as the Vlandians. Their heavy cavalry, second to none, ran down the Emperor's foes from the Aserai wastes to the distant steppes. But the empire never had as much silver as it needed, and treasury officials soon learned that it could pay its mercenaries with land grants and titles. This was perhaps not the most far-sighted of policies. The Vlandians settled, married, planted farms, and built fortresses. It was not difficult, during the recent interregnum, for Osrac Iron-arm to declare himself king, independent in all but name. He seized the imperial capital of Baravenos and the lands along the coast, and that was how the west was lost to the empire.
The Vlandians are based on the feudal states of early medieval Europe, in particular the Normans, the Norse raiders who settled in France then carved out kingdoms for themselves in England, Sicily, and the Holy Land. The Normans stunned their Byzantine and Muslim adversaries with the fury and discipline of cavalry charges with couched lance which, in the words of 12th century chronicler Anna Comnena, "could pierce the walls of Babylon." The knights combined extraordinary discipline in training for war with the tenacious pursuit of any land they could possibly conceive a claim to. Any grey area in feudal inheritance law was grounds for war. The careers of William the Conqueror, Robert Guiscard of Sicily, or the Crusader Bohemond were one of endless conflict: sometimes conquering more lands, but just as often over the relatively petty disputes of vassal against liege, brother against brother, father against son.
The Vlandians control slightly more territory than the other factions, but we've seeded the ground for a lot of internal dissent among them. The world-weary Vlandian king, Derthert, will have to deal with barons who are more interested in pursuing their own agendas than fighting under his banner. Mount and Blade: Warband also tried to model this "herding cats" aspect of medieval warfare, but some people found the implementation, in which lords could wander off on their own accord, to be frustrating. In Bannerlord, the new Influence mechanism will let the player spend influence to keep large armies of quarrelsome vassals in the field - but that resource is limited.
The Vlandians will have their share of minor factions. As with the Battanians and Khuzaits, these serve to emphasize the origins of the kingdom. For example, players who wish to emulate the adventurers who founded the Vlandian (and Norman) kingdoms can seek their fortunes with the Company of the Golden Boar, mercenaries who are based on medieval outfits like the Catalan or Free Companies.
Vlandian arms and armour are based on that of Western Europe from the 9th to the early 12th centuries. This was a period of relatively fast evolution, and leaves us with some balancing issues. For example, there are textual references to what appear to be two-handed swords in this period, notably as wielded by Swabian mercenaries at the 1053 battle of Civitate, but as far as we know no artistic depictions or specimens. Two-handed swords were a popular weapon in Warband, so we're including them - but we're ensuring they're relatively rare, a hero's weapon rather than standard equipment. There's also come controversy about how frequently crossbows were used in the 11th century and before, but we're erring on the side of inclusion. Their use should help the Vlandians be as effective defending fortresses as the Normans were historically.
The couched lance charge is a deadly tactic - as it was, clearly, on the medieval battlefield. But it becomes much more effective when it's performed by a good rider on a powerful horse. In Bannerlord, we're trying to ensure there's a trade-off between specializing as light or heavy cavalry. Light horses will be noticeably more manoeuvrable but also more averse to physical contact. And even the best heavy cavalry should think twice about crashing into a wall of spears - even the Normans could not break the shield wall at Hastings, instead wearing it down with combined arms and feints. Still, used properly, a force of Vlandians can be a steamroller - just be sure to keep them focused on your enemies instead of your own lands.
In next week’s blog we will be speaking with Software Engineers, Dündar Ünsal and Koray Kıyakoğlu. Dündar and Koray work alongside each other to ensure that the front-end (client) and back-end (server) of Bannerlord communicate efficiently and effectively. If you have a question you would like to ask, please leave a reply in the comments section and we will pick one out for them to answer.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
The misty hills of north-western Calradia are dominated by the Battanian clans, the original inhabitants of much of the continent. Their hilltop fortresses have born witness to countless wars fought to resist outside invaders: first the Empire's legions, and more recently the rising Sturgian and Vlandian kingdoms. They are masters of the longbow, the night raid, the sudden wild charge out of the woods. They idolise valour, but especially like it when mixed with a bit of mischief - the cattle thief who can whisk an entire herd into the fog; the champion who dines with a rival tribe, and, regaling his hosts with an anecdote of battle, produces from his bag the skull of one of their kinsmen that he took as a souvenir.
As readers have probably guessed, the Battanians are inspired by the Celtic peoples of Western Europe - in particular, the Picts, Irish, and Welsh of the early medieval era. So we'd like to take this chance to discuss how history influences our design. Mount and Blade's Calradia is a low-fantasy setting that we think gains from cleaving fairly closely to history. Our physics-based combat system, for example, gives a well-balanced sword or a hard-hitting axe the characteristics that you'd expect by looking at it. A murderous-looking ascent up a cliffside to assault a fort should be murderous in the game, thanks to an engine that gives defenders the ability to rain down rocks and arrows on attacking forces.
Because of this design philosophy, we try not to introduce any social institutions that would be impossible to find in the technological and economic setting we describe. But we also don't mind borrowing a bit from other times and places outside our core setting, the 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Dark Age Celts built some mysterious and majestic structures, like massive roundhouses and complex concentric fortresses, but did not build major cities. By then, they'd been pushed back to the margins of Europe, where big cities were hard to sustain. Back in Caesar's day, however, the Celts still lived closer to the economic heart of the continent and created impressive towns known as oppida on key trade routes. So you won't find an exact archaeological antecedent for our Battanian settlements, which mix later Celtic architecture with earlier Celtic town layout. But we think the result will be both visually impressive and credible, sort of an alternate version of how Celtic settlements could have evolved had history been slightly different.
Lots of our characters, too, are based on history - or legends, at least. For example, the Battanian king Caladog is partially inspired by Gruffydd ap Llywellyn, who dominated much of Wales in the 11th century. He was a very colourful figure, ruthless yet possessed of a wicked sense of humour. He is famous for quipping, when accused of having killed off all his competitors for the kingship, "I merely blunt the horns of Wales' sons lest they injure their mother." The charismatic silver-tongued rogue, who'd steal your cattle and then extemporise a poem about it: this was a bit of stereotype of Celts among the English at the time. It's actually a common view that inhabitants of peaceful but despotic kingdoms held of tribal peoples who had a strong oral tradition and enjoyed freedom but little security. Boastful, cunning, resourceful, but perhaps a tad too cussed and individualistic for their own good -- the Battanians aren't an efficient conquering machine like some of their neighbours, but no one makes war with more flair.
Bannerlord gives us some new features to bring out the uniqueness of its cultures, but we're especially excited about minor factions - mercenaries, nomads and outlaw leagues that have their own agendas that aren't part of the struggle for power. One of the Battanian minor factions is the Wolfskins - a society of young warriors who have left their clans to live a life of freedom (and violence) in the woods. So long as they live 'as wolves' - eating no cooked meat, sleeping under no roof, and wearing no woven cloth - they are exempt from the laws of men. The Wolfskins are inspired by the Fianna, a fighting brotherhood who were the stars of a major Irish saga. It treats them as heroes, but they also have a dark side, extorting money from clans who are interested in mundane things like marriage and crops and don't have time to fight all the time. Simon Young, a historian who wrote a brilliantly entertaining reconstruction of "darkest Britain," AD 500, suggests that the Fianna may in reality have given rise to legends of werewolves. The Code of the Wolf however is our own invention.
In next week’s blog we will be talking with Technical Artist, Gökalp Doğan. If you have a question you would like to ask him please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer.
Greetings warriors of Calradia!
To the south of the imperial heartland lies the Nahasa, the Bronze Desert, ringed by mountains, hammered by the sun. A traveller coming over the passes from greener lands would first see fields of dunes broken by gravel plains and volcanic outcrops, shimmering under the heat haze. But there is water to be found underground, trapped in depressions or beneath the wadis where the occasional flash flood rumbles by. And in these oases people have settled. They are divided into dozens of clans and sub-clans, each with its elaborate genealogy, but are collectively known as the Banu Asera or the Aserai after the legendary patriarch Asera, whom they all claim as an ancestor.
The Empire even at its heights preferred not to send its legions into the army-devouring wastes. Instead, it projected its power into the Nahasa by cultivating clients and allies among the clans, who competed in an endless dance of power. Those clans that could secure a hold on the oases won an imperial subsidy to protect passing caravans and grew rich. Those who could not were pushed into the desert, left to raise goats and camels and raid caravans until they could plot a comeback. Today, with the waning of the empire offering new opportunities and new risks, the Aserai have agreed to form a confederacy under a sultan chosen from richest of the clans, the Banu Hulyan. But everyone knows that the dance has only temporarily been stopped, and at the right moment it will begin again.
The Aserai are based on the Arab tribes just before the great Islamic conquests of the seventh century, which created a diverse tri-continental caliphate whose scale and institutions don't really fit Bannerlord's political system. In the centuries before, the Arabs formed a series of confederations and kingdoms inside and on the margins of the Arabian and Syrian deserts. Many think of the entire Middle East as arid wastes, even though most of the more famous battles, especially during the Crusades, were fought in coastal Mediterranean regions or the highland steppe of Anatolia. The Arab heartland however really is mostly desert. Our landscapes reflect the harsh beauty of dunes, craggy mountains, and oases, along with the less glamorous stretches of wasteland in between, like scrubland and dry wadis.
Historians have left vivid portraits of the chieftains, kings, and occasional ruling queens of Palmyra, Kinda, Hirah, and other principalities of the deserts. Some were morally complex characters, managing their domains with a mixture of cajoling, threats, bribes, skulduggery, bravery, and shameless nepotism. The Aserai sultan, Unqid, is cut from this mould. Their task was not made easier by warrior-poets like Imru al-Qais, Antara, and Tarafa. These untameable mavericks wrote lyric verse about the transitory nature of human experience, their memories of liaisons with their beloved in a now-deserted campsite slowly erased by wind and flood, then used it to segue into a string of boasts about the battles they won and the steeds they've ridden. We're using Bannerlord's new events system to create a backstory of grudges and feuds that will test an aspiring sultan's ability to placate and lead.
Mideastern armies are popularly associated with horse archers, but in fact those only became prevalent about two centuries after the founding of Islam with the influx of Turks. The Arabs fought with short sword, long spear, and foot bow. Warriors prided themselves on their flexibility, fighting as light mounted lancers or heavy foot, in formed ranks or as individual champions. Javelins, a favourite weapon of the Berbers, made their appearance in Islamic armies fairly early, and we have the Aserai use them as well. All in all it's a mix of good troops, pretty well balanced across cavalry and infantry. The Arabs were famously proud of their horses, and the Aserai breeds - produced by pastures in Aserai lands - will have unique characteristics. Middle Eastern warriors wore a mix of armours, often under richly embroidered textiles. Bannerlord's physics model gives us new options in bringing the pageantry of these armies to life, with banners, horsetails and robes fluttering in the desert breeze.
The Aserai, like all Bannerlord cultures, will have minor factions. The Jawwal are Bedouin nomads, like those who plagued caliphs, sultans and kings throughout Islamic history. And though our reference point is late antiquity and the very early medieval era, we've also introduced some institutions that thrived under the caliphs. The Ghilman, a brotherhood of slave-warriors, represent the forerunners to the Mamluks who fought for and later came to dominate the caliphate. Aserai towns meanwhile will be dominated by the back-alley mafias who feature in tales of urban Middle Eastern life, from The Thousand and One Nights to the novels of Naguib Mahfouz. The desert of the south will be hard to rule and dangerous to traverse, but the other realms ignore it at their peril, lest it suddenly throw forth a host capable of bringing empires to their knees.
To the south of the imperial heartland lies the Nahasa, the Bronze Desert, ringed by mountains, hammered by the sun. A traveller coming over the passes from greener lands would first see fields of dunes broken by gravel plains and volcanic outcrops, shimmering under the heat haze. But there is water to be found underground, trapped in depressions or beneath the wadis where the occasional flash flood rumbles by. And in these oases people have settled. They are divided into dozens of clans and sub-clans, each with its elaborate genealogy, but are collectively known as the Banu Asera or the Aserai after the legendary patriarch Asera, whom they all claim as an ancestor.
The Empire even at its heights preferred not to send its legions into the army-devouring wastes. Instead, it projected its power into the Nahasa by cultivating clients and allies among the clans, who competed in an endless dance of power. Those clans that could secure a hold on the oases won an imperial subsidy to protect passing caravans and grew rich. Those who could not were pushed into the desert, left to raise goats and camels and raid caravans until they could plot a comeback. Today, with the waning of the empire offering new opportunities and new risks, the Aserai have agreed to form a confederacy under a sultan chosen from richest of the clans, the Banu Hulyan. But everyone knows that the dance has only temporarily been stopped, and at the right moment it will begin again.
The Aserai are based on the Arab tribes just before the great Islamic conquests of the seventh century, which created a diverse tri-continental caliphate whose scale and institutions don't really fit Bannerlord's political system. In the centuries before, the Arabs formed a series of confederations and kingdoms inside and on the margins of the Arabian and Syrian deserts. Many think of the entire Middle East as arid wastes, even though most of the more famous battles, especially during the Crusades, were fought in coastal Mediterranean regions or the highland steppe of Anatolia. The Arab heartland however really is mostly desert. Our landscapes reflect the harsh beauty of dunes, craggy mountains, and oases, along with the less glamorous stretches of wasteland in between, like scrubland and dry wadis.
Historians have left vivid portraits of the chieftains, kings, and occasional ruling queens of Palmyra, Kinda, Hirah, and other principalities of the deserts. Some were morally complex characters, managing their domains with a mixture of cajoling, threats, bribes, skulduggery, bravery, and shameless nepotism. The Aserai sultan, Unqid, is cut from this mould. Their task was not made easier by warrior-poets like Imru al-Qais, Antara, and Tarafa. These untameable mavericks wrote lyric verse about the transitory nature of human experience, their memories of liaisons with their beloved in a now-deserted campsite slowly erased by wind and flood, then used it to segue into a string of boasts about the battles they won and the steeds they've ridden. We're using Bannerlord's new events system to create a backstory of grudges and feuds that will test an aspiring sultan's ability to placate and lead.
Mideastern armies are popularly associated with horse archers, but in fact those only became prevalent about two centuries after the founding of Islam with the influx of Turks. The Arabs fought with short sword, long spear, and foot bow. Warriors prided themselves on their flexibility, fighting as light mounted lancers or heavy foot, in formed ranks or as individual champions. Javelins, a favourite weapon of the Berbers, made their appearance in Islamic armies fairly early, and we have the Aserai use them as well. All in all it's a mix of good troops, pretty well balanced across cavalry and infantry. The Arabs were famously proud of their horses, and the Aserai breeds - produced by pastures in Aserai lands - will have unique characteristics. Middle Eastern warriors wore a mix of armours, often under richly embroidered textiles. Bannerlord's physics model gives us new options in bringing the pageantry of these armies to life, with banners, horsetails and robes fluttering in the desert breeze.
The Aserai, like all Bannerlord cultures, will have minor factions. The Jawwal are Bedouin nomads, like those who plagued caliphs, sultans and kings throughout Islamic history. And though our reference point is late antiquity and the very early medieval era, we've also introduced some institutions that thrived under the caliphs. The Ghilman, a brotherhood of slave-warriors, represent the forerunners to the Mamluks who fought for and later came to dominate the caliphate. Aserai towns meanwhile will be dominated by the back-alley mafias who feature in tales of urban Middle Eastern life, from The Thousand and One Nights to the novels of Naguib Mahfouz. The desert of the south will be hard to rule and dangerous to traverse, but the other realms ignore it at their peril, lest it suddenly throw forth a host capable of bringing empires to their knees.
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