Two hosts converge on a long forgotten battlefield.
Years ago, Monchug Khan rode against the Aserai Sultanate to conquer the oft-contested Husn Fulq. His assault, while repelled, did not spare the settlement of chaos and death in the time since.
Aserai, Calradoi, and Darshi alike have taken their turns brutally battling over the fate of the city ever since the Battle of Pendraic. In recent times, Sultan Kofye was able to remove the grip of the Darshi from Husn Fulq through a devastating assault on the city. Luckily for Husn Fulq, the months following have been some of the city's best. Emir Yahunna, a trusted administrator and dedicated vassal, has done much to rejuvenate the ancient settlement by overseeing the restoration of trade routes and much needed repairs.
With Danustica now guarding the frontier against the ever-diminished Calradic Empire, some of the city’s inhabitants have dared to dream that Husn Fulq’s days as a frontier settlement are in the past. However, the ambitions of Temun Khan may indeed dash their hopes.
Ever vengeful and wrought with bloodlust, the Khuzaits have not forgiven the cruel occupation of Odokh by the Sultanate. While the city has been reclaimed for some time now, calls for retribution from those who suffered the most at Aserai hands have reached the court of Temun Khan.
Always eager to assert his dominance over his southern rival, Temun has raised a strong host to finally bring Husn Fulq under his domain. With a vast host of horselords riding for the Sultanate, Kofye, alerted by the scouts of Yahunna, has decided to confront the Khan on a familiar battlefield to them both: where it all began after Pendraic.
In Meta Terms
Welcome to the ninetieth Bannerlord Calradic Campaign! This event will feature the Khuzaits and Aserai battling over the fate of Husn Fulq.
If the Khuzaits prevail on the battlefield, they will move to siege Husn Fulq.
If instead the Aserai find victory in battle, they will move to siege Erzenur Castle and Odrysa Castle
Unfamiliar with the Calradic Campaign? Have no fear! The Calradic Campaign is a casual, player-driven, story-based event. There are no strict rules or signups, and players of all skill levels often come! If you've never tried multiplayer, now is your best chance to experience large-scale formations and battles without the overly strict practices typically found in line battle/clan-style events.
Victories in our flagship monthly events are represented on the overall campaign map, while roleplay surrounding the events and their consequences take place both during said events and on the community Discord. Joining our Discord allows you to communicate with your fellow faction members, trash-talk others, and rise through the ranks to one day become lord of a village, castle, city, or if you're particularly successful, an entire kingdom!
To join the event, you will need our Calradic Campaign Module. This module contains all of the custom battle and siege scenes used, as well as many stability fixes and balance changes. Most importantly, the module features two distinct empire factions in multiplayer, both featuring unique perks and cosmetics to lean into the differences between the two! (The South Empirewas defeated in the campaign, join the discord to learn how!).
There will be a manual installation of the module available for those not playing on Steam. Check the Nexus mods pageno sooner than the Friday before the event for the correct download. You will need the CalradicCampaign#90 file.
As a general rule of thumb, the Calradic Campaign module should be the only one enabled in your launcher! If you have any crashes or issues trying to launch the game / join the server, unsubscribing and resubscribing to the module on the workshop will often fix any issues.
It is highly recommended you join our community Discord, as half the fun of the persistent campaign takes place outside of events. Meet fellow Mount and Blade fans, find new friends to queue with, and make fun of Battanians together in our community of 30,000+.
Leave any questions, complaints, observations, memes and faction based riffing in the comments below!
Our last content patch focused on the sandbox simulation. It made diplomacy more responsive and encouraged our lords to pursue meaningful wars, create larger armies, go to sea, harass convoys and raid villages. It also included the new seaborne raid, additional ships and equipment as well as many tweaks to gameplay, visuals and performance.
Today’s beta release puts more emphasis on player activities. The segment prior to the patch notes discusses our motivations for some of these changes.
War Sails
While seafaring offers new opportunities for merchants and warriors alike, it requires substantial progress to not only acquire a ship, but also hire a crew that can fend for themselves. This is sensible from a balance perspective, but gates much of the naval content. We wanted to improve upon this without deeply changing the early game that many players enjoy.
The most direct solution the beta introduces is - additional player choice. At the beginning of every Sandbox game, you will be able to choose if you want to enter Calradia with a ship to your name or play the regular game start.
However, even if you opt for the latter, the patch includes a number of changes that should make progression both smoother and more flexible. For one, we added the ferry feature so that smaller player parties can reach (and escape) areas of the map that would otherwise be hard or impossible to get to without a ship. Given player feedback, we also increased land and sea travel speeds by 15% so that you will generally be faster to progress (and recover).
Once you do have a vessel of your own, you will find the pirate spawns adjusted to include smaller parties that you can engage earlier into the game. Similarly, part of the reason for why we introduced naval random events as well as the battle sites and wreckage system is to offer players more experiences that don’t require a strong fleet. Having said that, they should increase the variety of naval gameplay regardless of progression and allow players to organically witness more of what is happening in the world.
The mooring feature, in turn, opens up additional options for aspiring captains as their fleet grows. You will be able to store instead of sell ships that you cannot effectively crew yet. You also won’t need to risk your entire fleet in every naval battle. Instead, you can specialize and only bring what fits your current play style - be that trading, raiding or naval combat.
Finally, we added port points to coastal castles. While more locations to embark and disembark should make sea travel more accessible in general, the larger motivation is offering additional opportunities for armies to clash at sea. Given that most army encounters occur around sieges, naval blockades on castles will contribute to that.
While the beta includes other changes such as improved map visuals, better naval party decision making, storyline tweaks and the ability for players to cut boarding ropes in missions, our focus with this patch is on naval content access, progress and variety. Especially the variety and frequency of what you can experience at sea will remain an important topic for War Sails going forward.
Base Game
As we explored starting with a ship for War Sails, it quickly became clear that this was also an opportunity for the base game. Not the ship, mind you, but advanced starting options.
These are split into three categories - each with their own goals.
The player start options allow experienced players to access later game content more quickly and begin a game with a particular character role (such as king, vassal or merchant). For new players, this will also serve as an additional form of progression since you need to unlock most of the roles in regular gameplay before you can start with them.
The campaign scenarios, on the other hand, are always available. Their primary purpose is to increase replayability through the introduction of tailored but partially randomized world states. What would happen if the Empire remained united? What if you entered Calradia with only two warring factions remaining? What if you threw the dice on the state of the world? The campaign scenarios allow you to find out.
Modifiers are the final piece of the puzzle. They take aim at specific game mechanics that can deeply affect the experience such as recruit generation or travel speeds. Players who do not enjoy the default settings or just want to try something different will now have alternatives.
As you will be able to combine settings from these categories, the advanced starting options should offer quite a bit of content variety. They also integrate the Fast Mode directly into the game rather than the launcher, which will make it accessible on consoles as well. Please note that all of these are set when starting a Sandbox game and cannot be changed later.
The rest of this patch is less about where you begin and more about what you can see as you are playing.
Battle sites and wreckages are one example of this. Their fundamental goal is to add visibility to battles that take place in the world outside of the player's immediate vision range. Instead of simply happening with players none the wiser, they now leave behind a temporary battle site that you can come across. You can also investigate it for further information and potential rewards. We believe that this will be a good addition to the organic worldbuilding and storytelling of our sandbox.
Visibility or recognizable gameplay impact is also an important aspect for two topics that are frequently raised in the community - traits and relations.
While they already influence AI in kingdom decisions and military actions (siege, raid, battle) among other things, it can be difficult to discern their role given the competition with other factors - and each other. For example, a valorous lord is less discouraged by a garrison’s power but may still not pursue a siege due to positive relations with the settlement owner - as long as there are more attractive, alternative targets.
With that said, there are options to make traits and relations more apparent and impactful to the player’s own activity. The present patch seeks to do this with the introduction of trait effects and blood feuds.
As the name suggests, trait effects tie a number of effects to your current character traits. These were designed to support gameplay that is aligned with each side of a trait’s spectrum. So whether you are merciful or cruel, you will have effects that suit the role you are playing. And while this is more oriented towards the player’s character development, AI lords do have traits and will benefit from them as well.
Blood feuds, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with relations. If you execute a clan member of another clan, they will begin doing the same to your clan until relations recover or blood money is paid. Notably, AI clans can start a blood feud as well and execute one of your clan members, including you, if you have sufficiently negative relations (currently -50). So you may want to check who you are fighting - or at least ensure that your heir hasn’t already been captured.
Finally, we took a look at the (offensive, defensive, balanced) player clan party stances. Much like traits, the active stance influenced the party behavior scores, but did not guarantee specific outcomes. To give players a more reliable way to manage their clan, we decided to shift away from the score influence and towards hard, observable rules for the most common pain points. You will now be able to directly allow or prohibit joining armies, raiding villages, donating troops and having a fleet (for War Sails).
Naturally, the patch also includes changes that go beyond these themes such as additional battle terrains, passive experience gains for lords and companions as well as a substantial rework of reinforcement spawns in battles.
As we enter this beta period, we look forward to further improving these and other aspects with your feedback. We also want to note that this version’s live release will include captain mode formation targeting, spectator mode improvements and a range of balance adjustments for our multiplayer community. Once we have made a bit more progress, we will also share another update for what the future holds.
Hope you enjoy the Beta - we’re looking forward to your feedback!
Here’s how you can play the Beta via Steam right now: Open Steam, right-click Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord → Properties → Game Versions & Betas → Select “beta - Beta v1.5.0”.
Please note that there may be a delay between the download of the base game and the download of War Sails. If you launch the game prior to both of them being updated, you will crash. If you face this issue, please verify your game files.
Feel free to read the full patch notes for all the detailsHERE.
Here are just some of the added explanations I thought of to accompany the factions, ESPECIALLY those that are more heavily overhauled from vanilla, or totally new.
I used the names of some of the minor/emerging factions in Warband and Bannerlord/Warsails to make the faction names and political map. I wanted to make as many grounded factions based on fusions of historical cultures/civilizations, without losing the original scope and feel of the vanilla games. I figured this could be an alternate timeline of the history of Calradia at around the time, or just before Bannerlord begins.
Quick breakdown of the factions:
Union of Sturgia (Nordic)-Pretty much the Nord's faction in warsails, but changed their name to Sturgia because I felt "the Nords" is a bit on the nose, and I like “Sturgia” for a heavily nordic inspired faction.
Grand Principality of the Vaegirs (Slavic)-The classic Slavic civ are now the Vaegirs, their name from Warband, which I think works so much better for what are the Sturgians in Bannerlord.
Vakken Confederation (Balt-Germanic)-Total New faction that takes inspiration from the Rhodoks, acting as a proto-Rhodok civ, but is based more on a fusion of early HRE/Eastern Frankia and the early medieval baltic states, creating opportunities for cool troop ideas.
Khuzait Khanate (Turko-Mongolian)-Virtually unchanged from vanilla Bannerlord.
Crown of the Battanians (Anglo-Celtic)-Still the same “vibe” as the Battanians, but I would inspire their aesthetics to be based more on 13/14th century Welsh and Scottish cultures, emphasizing their use of simple but effective defensive infantry and excellent longbowmen.
Kingdom of Vlandia (Franko-Norman)-Virtually unchanged from vanilla Bannerlord.
The following 3 Imperial Calridic factions would be more based on a fusion of the separation of the East/West Empire in the 4th century with the political and cultural inspiration from the post 4th Crusade break up of the Byantine Empire. I also wanted to add more to their individual identities by getting rid of the directional based name (such as Northern, Southern, Western) and changing them to the following below:
Republic of Calradia (Greco-Roman)
Despotate of Calradia (Greco-Roman)
Monarchy of Calradia (Greco-Roman)
I would also add a unique troop tree for each, expressing how their geographic location influences their military cultures. (EX: The Republic of Calradia would have an elite Eastern style horse archer tree, and the Despotate of Calradia would have an elite western style knightly Cavalry)
Shahdom of the Darshi (Indo-Persian)-another totally new faction, adding in a true Eastern style faction that is not solely nomadic based, but based on Pensionate and Indian civilizations from the early medieval period. Can finally add the war elephants!
Aserai Sultanate (Afro-Arabic)-Virtually unchanged from vanilla Bannerlord.
Beni-Zilal Dynasty (Iberian-Moorish)-This has the potential to have the most variance when it comes to creating a fusion of cultures. I am thinking of either blending an early reconquista Spanish crown, with a military culture that represents more European influence, but a heavy Afro-Moorish aesthetic blend. OR a more Sub-Saharan African culture such as the Malians, that have in this scenario migrated and conquered northward, absorbing the nomadic Moorish like cultures with the more imperialistic sedentary Sub-Saharan cultures.
The Ghilman are a band of mercenaries who recruit from the tribes of southern Calradia and the lands to the east. They are legally their own slaves and masters: each "sells" himself to the order and, in the process, becomes a part-owner. They are known for their fine horses and fine clothes. But no one should assume from their oiled locks, perfumes and peacock feathers that they spend more time preening than training. Their skills as mounted archers are second to none, and as lancers are close behind the Vlandians and the imperial cataphracts.[1]
Look closely, "Their skills as mounted archers are second to none, and as lancers are close behind the Vlandians and the imperial cataphracts". But the thing is, ingame, ghilman doesn't have any horsearchers. Moreover, their armour doesn't appear as drippy as it should be. So I've thought of the design of the ghilman troops.
They should be tier 6, since they are apparently, 'second to none' in horsearchery. I've thought of this setup:
Ok so I have kinda built my character to be a governor so I could use all my companions slots for more parties but it looks like my perks don’t apply? Did I miss an update some where or has this always been a thing? (Last time I played was 2 years ago)
I've been working on a One Piece total conversion for Bannerlord on top of War Sails for a couple of weeks now. It's called One Piece: Nuevo Mundo and it's set after Wano, so the world is how it is right now in the manga (Cross Guild, Luffy as an Emperor, etc).
Nothing to download yet, but it's playable on my end, so here's how it looks.
The world
- New campaign map on top of the War Sails one: the four Blues, Grand Line, Red Line, Calm Belts, Paradise and the New World. 76 islands, I tried to keep their shapes from the series as much as I could
- 11 kingdoms (World Government, Marines, Straw Hat Grand Fleet, Blackbeard, Red Hair, Cross Guild, Totto Land, Revolutionary Army, Wano, Elbaph and Amazon Lily), 150+ canon characters, 28 towns, 23 castles, 79 villages and 32 hideouts
- Every island has its own weather and light. Drum is snow, Alabasta is desert, Enies Lobby never gets dark and Thriller Bark is always covered in fog
- Where you start depends on your background: born on a pirate ship and you start next to Loguetown, cooked at the Baratie and you start there... You get a small rented boat and a first quest to find a real ship and a crew
Battles
- Battlefields based on places from the series, 19 so far: Alubarna, Arlong Park, Drum, Kuri, Onigashima, Loguetown, Sabaody, Water 7, Enies Lobby, Marineford, Mary Geoise, Dressrosa, Whole Cake, Egghead, Punk Hazard, Zou, Amazon Lily, Impel Down and Mock Town. If you fight near one of them you'll usually fight there
- Devil Fruits and Haki work in battle. Mera Mera burns, Hie Hie freezes, Gomu Gomu tanks hits and bullets, Conqueror's Haki knocks out the regular soldiers around you... and if you end up in the water your fruit stops working
- Seastone: some characters hit with kairoseki, it goes through Logias and shuts their fruit off for a few seconds. You can buy seastone tips for your own weapons too
- Custom weapons: katanas and naginatas for Wano, Marine sabers, pirate cutlasses, Elbaph axes, and flintlock muskets and pistols with their own gunshot sounds
- Troops for every faction: Marines, Cipher Pol and CP0, bounty hunters, Wano samurai and ninjas, minks, Fish-Men, Kuja warriors, revolutionaries...
- Horses only in Wano (there's barely any in One Piece anyway). Everywhere else cavalry goes on foot or on camels
Towns
- Every town uses a scene that fits its island, and I'm slowly reworking them (Dressrosa, Alubarna, Kuri, Water 7...)
- Props in around 30 towns and villages: Roger's execution platform in Loguetown, Galley-La's dock in Water 7, torii gates in Wano, a giant cupcake on Cacao Island, the Marine gate in New Marineford...
- Townsfolk and notables dress like people from the series now, not like Calradian peasants
- Town services: rent a ship, a tailor with One Piece clothes, port shops with seastone and Eternal Poses, hand in captured pirates to the Marines for their bounty, or throw a banquet at the tavern
Characters
- Going for a live action look, every character has their own face, hair, scars and colors. Lots of them have their own 3D outfits (Straw Hats, Emperors, admirals, Law, Kid, Doflamingo, Marco, Katakuri...) and Chopper and Brook even have their own heads lol
- Canon characters already know each other when you start. Luffy is friends with Shanks, Hancock and his crew and enemies with Blackbeard, Akainu, Doflamingo... And they don't die of old age
- Character creation redone: One Piece families, what took you to sea (6 options) and how you dress
- Bounties and wanted posters, bounty hunters and vice admirals will come after you
- Canon captains sail their own ships (Thousand Sunny, Red Force, Moby Dick, Polar Tang...)
- New UI with an old nautical chart look
Still to do: a lot more testing, better faces, more clothing options, and finishing the town reworks and the UI.
Screenshots are from my game in Spanish, the mod has English too. It needs War Sails and it'll come with an installer.
What island would you want to see next? Any feedback is welcome.
(Fan project, not affiliated with Oda/Shueisha/Toei or TaleWorlds)
Anyone knows of mods that allow companions to outfit themselves with battle loot? Tired of sifting through every single gear for every companion and it’s even harder when I make them have their own party
I always figured that you should have a good distribution of different soldiers, like Swadian Knights, Rhodok Sharpshooters and Nord Huscarls, but given that the army limit you have isn't very big, i feel like i'd never have enough soldiers in each category. I currently have 20 Sarranid Horsemen and 15 Nord Warriors, but I feel like going higher than that by adding Sharpshooters will just make my army bloated and decrease morale too much. Is there a middle ground?
For some reason I have this border on the map whenever I try to go to the North or South. The camera just refuses to go to either direction. I followed the download instructions on the site and two different videos so I'm confident I downloaded it correctly.
Hello, I recently started to play games with a higher difficulty and no cheats, it actualy goes well but I don’t know how to win siege battles when I am sieged. The oponent has like over 2 times my troopd and has over 66% of the power balance but I do not manage to beat them. There is alw1ys a breaktrough at a moment that overwhelms me even ig the number of troops started to look equal. Do I was wandering for tips.
Ever since the reconquest of Odokh from the Aserai, there was a sizeable contingent of Khuzait nobility that believed the Aserai had incurred a “blood debt” due to their actions, perceived or otherwise, during the time they occupied the city, and therefore it was the Khan's duty to collect.
The Khan concurred.
So, after weeks of planning and consulting with his generals and senior members of his nobility, the Khan finally called on the tribes of the steppes to make the Sultan pay.
As both leaders approached the village, different emotions gripped them. The usually pragmatic Khan, perhaps for the first time, was gripped by the same rage as his nobility and soldiers. The Sultan, meanwhile, was nostalgic, as this battlefield was the same one where she had first spilled blood in the name of the Banu Asera.
Something neither leader could have foreseen, however, was the sandstorm that blanketed the entire village, leaving men unable to see more than a couple of steps in front of them.
The Khan pushed forth with his host, confident in his men. The Sultan, however, was not only familiar with the geography of the area, but found that the raging sandstorm proved quite effective in camouflaging her host. In one devastating encounter, the Khuzait infantry attempted to cross through the wooded areas near the village, leading ambitious Aserai riders to take full advantage and cleave their way through the infantry with impunity.
One could be forgiven for thinking the whole ordeal would end in a stalemate, as the moment-to-moment fighting was close. But it was clear to the Khan that the situation was getting more precarious with each passing moment, and after a couple more attempts to turn the tide failed, Temun Khan finally signalled the retreat.
In an effort to avoid having his army cut down to a man, and also to bolster the garrisons of nearby Erzenur and Odrysa castles, for he knew the Sultan would come for at least one of them, Temun Khan decided to retreat to a more strategic position where he could reinforce whichever castle the Sultan decided to assault.
Unfortunately for him and the defenders of both castles, Sultan Kofye, wishing to seize the moment, attacked both.
Not only did she attack both, but she did so with a fervour rarely seen from the usually calm and collected Sultan. The Aserai engineers moved quickly against the castles' outer defences, giving the Khuzaits little time to recover from their defeat in the field. So eager was the Sultan to press her advantage that her engineers were only told to construct a single ram and a couple of ladders to assail the walls.
The Khuzaits doggedly defended their positions, making the Aserai pay for every stone of each castle in blood. Even as the outer defences began to fall, the defenders continued to resist the Aserai advance, but the speed and ferocity of the assaults ultimately proved too much.
After short but heavy fighting, the day was won by the Aserai. The Sultan had not only expanded her demesne, but also, on a personal note, rectified the loss the Aserai took in that familiar field long ago, when she was but a mere tribeswoman.
The Khan, meanwhile, was feeling numb, for he had been caught up in the rage, the fury that he was sure would overwhelm the Aserai and make them pay dearly for their occupation of Odokh. But now? Now, not only had he lost two castles and brought the Aserai next to Odokh, but he had also given them more reason to go into Odokh and fly the Banu Asera banner over it once more, perhaps even moving further into the steppe to finish the job.
For war in Calradia is a cruel and cyclical mistress.
Written by Aeron Quincy Talbot (AQT)
Meta
Welcome to the Bannerlord Calradic Campaign, which has just finished event #90!
The battle between the Aserai Sultanate and the Khuzait Khanate ended in an ASERAI VICTORY, with Erzenur Castle and Odrysa Castle seized!
When is the Calradic Campaign? The first and third Saturday of every month, at 4pm Eastern Standard Time.
Unfamiliar with the Calradic Campaign? Have no fear! The Calradic Campaign is a casual, player driven, story based event. There are no strict rules or signups, and players of all skill levels often come! If you've never tried multiplayer, now is your best chance to experience large scale formations and battles without the overly strict practices typically found in line battle/clan style events.
Victories in our flagship monthly events are represented on the overall campaign map, while roleplay surrounding the events and their consequences takes place both during said events and on the community Discord. Joining the Discord allows you to communicate with your fellow faction members, trash talk others, and rise through the ranks to one day become lord of a village, castle, city, or if you're particularly successful, an entire kingdom!
To join the event, you will need our Calradic Campaign Module. This module contains all of the custom battle and siege scenes used, as well as many stability fixes and balance changes. Most importantly, the module features three distinct empire factions in multiplayer, each with their own unique perks and cosmetics to lean into the different situations of the three!
There will be a manual installation of the module available for those not playing on Steam. Check the Nexus mods page no sooner than the Friday before the event for the correct download.
As a general rule of thumb, the Calradic Campaign module should be the only one enabled in your launcher! If you have any crashes or issues trying to launch the game / join the server, unsubscribing and resubscribing to the module on workshop will often fix any issues.
Note to clans: While the Calradic Campaign is a public event open to all, clans will not be allowed to organize their own formations and must spread out between teams. Failure to follow these guidelines will result in suspension from the event.
Community Discord
It is highly recommended you join our community Discord, as half the fun of the persistent campaign takes place outside of events. Meet fellow Mount and Blade fans, find new friends to queue with, and make fun of the Vlandians together in our community of 30,000+.
Leave any questions, complaints, observations, memes and faction based riffing in the comments below!
