Mount and Blade Napoleonic DLC

[spelk]

Ah thats the mode I was playing last night, and a video from my old Regiment, the 51st!

You issue commands via the Function keys.

F1 has all the basic movement orders, Follow me, Hold position, advance 10 paces, retreat 10 paces , charge.
F2 has the line formation orders, such as single line, double line, line of 3 and line of 4, spread out, close up
F3 has the firing orders, fire at will, fire on my command
F4 has the type of offense, use melee, use ranged, mount horse

You are the leader, and you have a spyglass, a sabre and a pistol. The spyglass is very useful indeed, in spotting and planning your attack.  Pistol is useful for a quick shot as the cavalry come in, then its sabre time!

You issue the "follow me" order (F1 then F2) all the sub options in a menu are selected using the function keys too.
Then I set the formation, double line (F2, F2).
Then I set the firing mode, fire at will (F3,F1), although I think it defaults to this one.

Then as I move, the whole company moves with me. They will stop and fire on any enemy in range. Unless you've commanded them to only fire on your command.  As I get them into position I want, I quickly order them to hold this position (F1,F1) and they form up in a line wherever I am facing, with two deep the front rank will kneel as the back rank fires. From this point I am free to scout and spy behind the line, as they keep firing at any enemy.

If you can secure a good position, supporting other line infantry, you have a good chance of quite a number of kills. But you do need to react to whats going on on the battlefield. Especially if cavalry are on the way.

I wish there was some sort of box formation to take on the cav, but I think the best you've got is a tight line formation. The men will swivel about to fire behind them, and they will engage the cav with ranged fire and the bayonet as needed. But if lots of cav hit you at once, it usually is a blood bath. Don't forget to put the sabre to any horseman who is unseated.

I can see me playing this mode quite a bit, I was the British Grenadiers with their green jackets and gold and red helmets, or the British Highlanders with busby and kilt! I'll keep practising command with line infantry for a while, till I've got the commands sorted - then it would be time to change tack and practice cavalry. They seemed very popular - the prospect of mowing down infantry men being almost too enticing for some. And afterwards I bet Artillery command is a totally different ball game.

There are no "wheel" commands for the line, which surprised me, but I think you perform a wheel, by issuing Follow Me (F1,F2) then you move forward and turn slightly, then issue the Hold Position (F1,F1) and you've essentially performed a wheel. You and your position is the key to your command. Make sure you're not taken out early. Fire your pistol, sure, but do it from a safer advantage than the front line. And try not to shoot your own men. :)

[spelk]

If anyone is online over the weekend, I'm spelk in Mount & Blade as well. So we'll have to try and suss out a particular server to play on, and get our jiggy on! :)

[Toonces]

I spent about 2 hours playing this online in the North American server (full at 200 the entire two hours).  I was playing in the mode where everyone online only controlled a single person and if you were killed you were out of the game until the round was over.  Rounds were about 8-10 minutes each.

In my opinion, in the mode I was playing, the game plays almost exactly like Call of Duty 4 with Napoleonic weapons.  This is a good thing.  All of the maps I played on (maybe 3-4) were around some sort of structure, a farmhouse, an intersection, a small village.  Generally both teams of 100 would start out just outside of visual range with something in the middle (or several things) to sieze and use to take cover.  Both teams would close to long range, find some cover, and start sniping at each other.  Inevitably both teams get small groups of skirmishers that will attempt some flanking move and eventually this facilitates street and building fighting in close quarters.  On at least one map there seemed to be an objective of capturing the enemy flags; on another it seemed to be a death match type of fight.

Both teams get cavalry, cannons and rockets for artillery.  These make a big difference as they can make your position untenable and force you to maneuver.

The lack of line battles worked for me in this type of environment.  The engagement maps were not really conducive to lines banging away at each other but were more suited to the close quarters, violent gun and melee type fighting. 

The troops look great.  I played France, UK and Prussia and they all look different and have multiple uniforms per country.  The music is great- a large mix of classical tunes that really enhance the mood.  Graphics looked good to me but are still dated compared to modern shooters.  There is a ton of destructable terrain and buildings, sandbags, etc.  This is great for when your cannon blows a hole in a building and then you rush against the wall and start sniping through the hole.  The guns/muskets sound great with an awesome sounding boom when you shoot them, and there seemed to be different sounds for different types of guns or muskets or whatever they are.

Overall, if the idea of street fighting kitted out in Napoleonic gear sounds like fun to you then this is a no-brainer.  I had an insanely fun time and I suspect this will eat up my whole weekend.  I can't wait to play some more tonight.  At $50 I would have said worth it, but definitely if you're into the series; at $30 I would have said this is a great bargain; at $10 I say everyone except folks who absolutely hated CoD should get this.  There is a lot of room to exercise tactics at the individual and small unit level: when do I reload?  Where do I reload?  Who has my flank?  Do I have enough friendlies around me to hold this corner against a charge or do I need to fall back?  Should I reload or go to melee with saber or clubbed musket? 

Two thumbs up.  I very highly recommend this mod to everyone who is even remotely interested, provided you aren't looking for a structured, historic, line battle type multiplayer.  What I saw just isn't that and you should be realistic at what you can expect with 200 strangers on a server together.

[Toonces]

pretty late for you guys, but I'm on the Official US server 1 as Sir_Lorimir.  Say hello if you log on.

[spelk]

In Custom Battle mode, you can command your units seperately by selecting their groups, groups are pretty much handled like RTS groups, press 1 for the 1st group, 2 for the 2nd etc.. So this really opens up the AI "single player" battles, by allowing you to place your units around the map, and attempting to hold off or even conquer the enemy. Since you select the troops composition - its a great tool to use to get familiar with Commander Battle mode before going online. Since your commander is usually on horseback, I often use him with a trailing group of heavy dragoons to perform cavalary charges on the enemy rear. Setting up line infantry into a killzone in the center.  Multiplayer is good, but the Custom Battle option gives you control over the entire battlefield! Brilliant! You can command group by group advances or retreats, and charges. You can even control fire at your command, or drop back to fire at will. Every command can be issued on every unit group individually or globally. All from horseback, whilst swinging your sabre!

[Grim.Reaper]

Spelk, with that said, is there some single player piece to this game and if so how would it work?

[spelk]

Grim, there is no single player. Sadly.

But you can play in the Custom Battle sandbox for as long as you would want.

To implement a single player campaign, there'd have to be a lot of scripting, I'd imagine.

[Grim.Reaper]

Only $5 at Gaamestop/Impulse right now...

http://www.impulsedriven.com/mnbnw

[jomni]

I might just get this out of curiosity.  Price of entry is cheap.

[Nefaro]

I'm ready to buckle.. but I didn't get Warband from Impulse, I got it from GG.

Wonder if the Impulse version would work with mine, even though I don't have an Impulse code for Warband. ... ..  ???

[Bison]

I'd be surprised if it did Nefaro.  Due to the client wrapping, but you could ask at Paradox or Tales World.

[Toonces]

I'm pretty sure you can still get the entire M&B collection for  $7.50 and Napoleon is $10 on top of that.  I realize that we're talking $17 here, but man alive is that a lot of gaming for less than $20. 

And you want to talk about mods?  You can't swing a saber without hitting some awesome mod for Warband.

I strongly recommend you spend a little time on youtube, see what it's all about, and then make the right decision and buy everything!

[Nefaro]

I've sold myself on the Napoleon DLC, and seeing as it's even half-price on Impulse-GS, I'm all about grabbing it on sale while I'm after it. 

From what I've seen, Steam is the only one that has a different executable ( as always), and the rest of the retailers have the original TaleWorlds installer, so I should be good mixing a GG version with an Impulse DLC expansion.  As long as Impulse didn't add some pre-requisite Impulse-only serial check to it, because it'll even recognize my Warband install - just not my Gamersgate key for it (for update reasons). 

[Nefaro]

Meh.. what am I doing?

I have over $5 worth of blue coins, I'll just buy another $5 and get the GG version of the Napoleonic DLC.   After seeing the videos of the multiplayer, I can't keep away.  8)

[Bison]

Impulse still requires a game be updated through it's client.  That is were I think the issue would come from in mixed client games.