If you want to be in an epic medieval war, there is absolutely no other game like it. Just imagine this: you are in a grassy field with trees surrounding you. The sun is rising in the morning and it’s almost serene, but you know the field will soon be painted red in blood. The infantry are in a line next to you and the archers close behind. There are cavalry on both wings. You are one of these wings. The commander sits on his horse in the back overlooking the entire sphere of battle. You wait in anticipation, the horse archers go out ahead to skirmish the enemy. It’s foolish, there are too many, and you see some of your companions fall in front of you. Quietly, as they are too far in the distance. You can see the enemy now, and they stretch out further than the eye can really see, easily numbering more than 500. Their cavalry comes into view, and the commander tells you to charge. You tell your men to follow behind you and start galloping, forming a spearhead. The sound of hooves thundering fill the air, louder and louder as you all get to full speed. You rear your spear in anticipation and brace yourself for the impact. The two tidal waves collide with an epic force.

Your horse wasn’t taken out underneath you but you hear the sound of wood colliding into flesh and metal behind you as your troop collides with the enemy. The horses neigh and the men yell in sheer cacophony. You try to keep your momentum to clear the enemy and circle back for another charge, but now the battlefield has broken up into chaos. You go after an enemy horseman, but another cavalry comes in flying from the side, barely missing you as he swings. You see your men miss you by inches, and you them. It’s pure chaos and it’s impossible to keep together. As you try to down the enemies around, the back of your head realizes that the battlefield is quickly changing as men die by the droves. You see an enemy infantry position completely vulnerable and quickly charge in to sweep through them.

Except you don’t have to imagine it, you can play it, right now. This is the Battle of the Bastards in GoT made into a video game. I mean, what other game has this level of chaos, this level of sheer energy? If there was another one, I would be playing it already. Warband started off with only a 150 unit cap, so it never really felt epic in scope, but it managed to keep up to date with mods helping you get there if you were looking for it. But here, you can immediately set the unit cap to 1000 per side and never look back. And beneath this epic increase in size and the substantial graphical update from a decade old game, there is still the old combat system that manages to have so much customization and flexibility in it’s engine. Different swords with different weight and length handle differently. You have maces, axes, spears, polearms, two handers, bows, crossbows. Yes, they haven’t REALLY improved it, and there was a lot to improve: shield wall fighting, 1v1 duels, grappling, just to name a few. But I sunk tens of hours into just the combat portion in Warband, and that still hasn’t changed in this game.

If I had to complain about one substantial thing though, it would be the map sizes for the battles. They absolutely are not big enough for these insane cavalry on cavalry confrontations. And there are other things too, like catapults should be actually damaging fortifications. It would be awesome to see dust clouds behind the horses or covering the man in the desert etc. Remove those icons overhead, and allow us to use banners to mark our troops. I would love to see an actual improvement in the overworld/strategic sphere, maybe taking some inspiration from grand strategy titles and other games like Nobunaga’s Ambition etc. However, it already does so much of them, really the big thing would be watching your villages prosper due to your decisions and really develop the civic/resource side of it.

At the end of the day, especially with a game like this, there will be thousands of things to complain about. And I definitely ran into a few issues/bugs and had to finagle my way through the interface to get what I wanted done. This balance or that economy could be better. For the less battle hungry crowd, yeah, the things out of combat might not be as interesting as a well crafted narrative, although I find the diplomacy perfectly serviceable for strategy gaming. I don’t see how it's really inferior to something like Civ for example. Regardless, whether you buy it now, or a year from now once all the bugs are fixed and things have become more normal, it doesn’t matter. The game still has about the best medieval style battles and sieges, and that’s not going to change.

P.S. Multiplayer. I like the new captain mode which allows you to command your own troops and coordinate with other players. Definitely a really great addition. It’s cool to actually see some competent formations by humans utilized in the battlefield and would love to see if it could be made more interesting.

If you want to be in an epic medieval war, there is absolutely no other game like it. Just imagine this: you are in a grassy field with trees surrounding you. The sun is rising in the morning and it’s almost serene, but you know the field will soon be painted red in blood. The infantry are in a line next to you and the archers close behind. There are cavalry on both wings. You are one of these wings. The commander sits on his horse in the back overlooking the entire sphere of battle. You wait in anticipation, the horse archers go out ahead to skirmish the enemy. It’s foolish, there are too many, and you see some of your companions fall in front of you. Quietly, as they are too far in the distance. You can see the enemy now, and they stretch out further than the eye can really see, easily numbering more than 500. Their cavalry comes into view, and the commander tells you to charge. You tell your men to follow behind you and start galloping, forming a spearhead. The sound of hooves thundering fill the air, louder and louder as you all get to full speed. You rear your spear in anticipation and brace yourself for the impact. The two tidal waves collide with an epic force. Your horse wasn’t taken out underneath you but you hear the sound of wood colliding into flesh and metal behind you as your troop collides with the enemy. The horses neigh and the men yell in sheer cacophony. You try to keep your momentum to clear the enemy and circle back for another charge, but now the battlefield has broken up into chaos. You go after an enemy horseman, but another cavalry comes in flying from the side, barely missing you as he swings. You see your men miss you by inches, and you them. It’s pure chaos and it’s impossible to keep together. As you try to down the enemies around, the back of your head realizes that the battlefield is quickly changing as men die by the droves. You see an enemy infantry position completely vulnerable and quickly charge in to sweep through them. Except you don’t have to imagine it, you can play it, right now. This is the [i]Battle of the Bastards[/i] in GoT made into a video game. I mean, what other game has this level of chaos, this level of sheer energy? If there was another one, I would be playing it already. Warband started off with only a 150 unit cap, so it never really felt epic in scope, but it managed to keep up to date with mods helping you get there if you were looking for it. But here, you can immediately set the unit cap to 1000 per side and never look back. And beneath this epic increase in size and the substantial graphical update from a decade old game, there is still the old combat system that manages to have so much customization and flexibility in it’s engine. Different swords with different weight and length handle differently. You have maces, axes, spears, polearms, two handers, bows, crossbows. Yes, they haven’t REALLY improved it, and there was a lot to improve: shield wall fighting, 1v1 duels, grappling, just to name a few. But I sunk tens of hours into just the combat portion in Warband, and that still hasn’t changed in this game. If I had to complain about one substantial thing though, it would be the map sizes for the battles. They absolutely are not big enough for these insane cavalry on cavalry confrontations. And there are other things too, like catapults should be actually damaging fortifications. It would be awesome to see dust clouds behind the horses or covering the man in the desert etc. Remove those icons overhead, and allow us to use banners to mark our troops. I would love to see an actual improvement in the overworld/strategic sphere, maybe taking some inspiration from grand strategy titles and other games like Nobunaga’s Ambition etc. However, it already does so much of them, really the big thing would be watching your villages prosper due to your decisions and really develop the civic/resource side of it. At the end of the day, especially with a game like this, there will be thousands of things to complain about. And I definitely ran into a few issues/bugs and had to finagle my way through the interface to get what I wanted done. This balance or that economy could be better. For the less battle hungry crowd, yeah, the things out of combat might not be as interesting as a well crafted narrative, although I find the diplomacy perfectly serviceable for strategy gaming. I don’t see how it's really inferior to something like Civ for example. Regardless, whether you buy it now, or a year from now once all the bugs are fixed and things have become more normal, it doesn’t matter. The game still has about the best medieval style battles and sieges, and that’s not going to change. P.S. Multiplayer. I like the new captain mode which allows you to command your own troops and coordinate with other players. Definitely a really great addition. It’s cool to actually see some competent formations by humans utilized in the battlefield and would love to see if it could be made more interesting.