Anno Domini 1257 is a total conversion mod for Mount&Blade: Warband set in 13th century Europe, the Middle East and North Africa during the Crusades and Mongol Invasions.[1] The game starts in March 1257 AD, and is historically accurate to that point, including all lords. From there, the player shapes the world with his/her actions, with the ability to let the Crusaders or Mongols succeed at invading all of Asia and Europe. The player may also begin their own faction, as in Native Warband, and fight on either side.
Features[]
- Huge map consisting of all of Europe and parts of the Middle East and North Africa, featuring 42 factions.
- Hundreds of new historical, region based troops.
- More than a thousand new items, armors, weapons, all historically accurate for XIII century.
- Buildable castles with ability to improve its fortifications to three levels.
- Manor system with the ability to build custom settlements (buildings that you build appear in the scene!).
- Realistic engaging combat system with taunts, formations, improved horse archer skirmishing scripts and other features.
- Custom battle scenes, realistically depicting each region of Europe from barren desserts, palm filled oasis, european swamps, open steppe battlefields, mediterranean plains, snowy gorges, frozen lakes, thick german forests.
- Weather system, including desert storms, blizzards, rain storms.
- Play as one of your soldiers after your death, with the auxiliary player feature (can be turned off in the mod options in the Camp menu).
- Crusading system: Join a crusade or start one yourself!
- Join a crusader order as sergeant or a knight!
- New optional lance recruitment system, aiming to emulate medieval feudal recruitment system.
- New Companion system improved and remade with an easy interface for recruiting.
- New improved Tournament system with 1vs1 jousting tournaments and team based tournaments, which offer more gold than vanilla warband.
- Sea battles and sea travel. Speed while travelling in sea vary based on the weather.
- Custom region based scenes for castles, towns and villages. And many unique historically based reconstructions of real places!
- Diplomacy Mod has been integrated.
- Freelancer Mod has been integrated. Join a king's or lord's army as a soldier for weekly wages. Be loyal and earn promotions and new equipment based on your rank.
- Many other minor and major features!
Gameplay[]
Anno Domini 1257 gameplay differs significantly from Native due to its expansive map, integration of Diplomacy, the impact of religions, and an alliance system. Most notably, the player can seek recognition from the Pope, which will result in every other Catholic nation recognizing the player. Below are the major gameplay changes from Native.
Alliances[]
The player cannot attack certain factions without losing relations with others. Below are a list of alliances in the game, all of which are reciprocal:
- The Papal States: taking a lord from the Papal States prisoner (synonymous with attacking for the purposes of this section) results in a loss of relation and thus the start of war with almost every Catholic nation in the game if relation with that faction goes below 0. This means that the player will immediately be at war with roughly 20 factions. Exceptions are the Republic of Venice, Republic of Genoa, Republic of Pisa, and Ghibellines. It does however include the Latin Empire.
- Holy Roman Empire: attacking the Holy Roman Empire results in war with the Teutonic Order, Republic of Genoa, Ghibellines, and Kingdom of Bohemia.
- Kingdom of Lithuania: attacking the Kingdom of Lithuania results in war with the Curonians, Jotvingians, Prussians, and Samagotians.
- Other Catholic nations: attacking any Catholic nation results in the loss of relation with the Papal States, which can precipitate into war with every other Catholic nation. Likewise, the previous exceptions do not apply in this case.
As a result of this alliance system, it is advisable for the player to curry favor with the Pope by sending gifts via Diplomacy's options or helping their lords in battle. This will allow the player to take enemy lords prisoner without causing relation with the Papal States to drop below 0. Alternatively, the player can join any Catholic nation not included in the previous exceptions (or the Latin Empire) as a vassal temporarily, which will immediately raise relation with The Papal States to 100, allowing significant relation to burn through in the event of war with another Catholic nation. Eastern Orthodox Christians hold no love for the Papal States and will not care if it is attacked.
Another potential remedy is to begin a faction far from the Papal States and seek recognition (covered in the next section) with high right to rule and, after securing it, immediately destroying the Papal States without taking prisoners.[2] This ensures the alliance system cannot come into play.
Recognition[]
The player can still seek recognition as the rightful ruler of their faction as in Native, but the recognition system appears to either be bugged or intentionally difficult to parse, and the player will only receive it if they are too far to engage in diplomatic relations with another faction. As a result, if the player aims to start a Catholic nation, it is inadvisable to begin it in Italy or close to it, as they will have proximity to the Pope and he will not crown them. Native requirements do not apply, and the only determiner is high right to rule. However, upon recognition by the Papal States, almost every nation immediately recognizes the player, even if the player holds fiefs that once belonged to them. Factions that must still be individually written to include:
- Kingdom of Lithuania
- Golden Horde
- Novgorod Republic
- Kingdom of Halych-Volhynia
- Emirate of Granada
- Roman Empire of Nicaea
- Mamluk Sultanate
- Latin Empire
- Ilkhanate
- Kingdom of Serbia
- Kingdom of Bulgaria
- Marinid Dynasty
- Curonians
- Jotvingians
- Prussians
- Samagotians
After receiving recognition, the player can enter into trade agreements, defensive pacts, and alliances with other kingdoms. Defensive pacts, however, do not function properly, and although the pact will be signed and border events shall cease for 60 days, the NPC kingdom will not declare war on any faction that declares war on the player. Alliances result in both kingdoms declaring war on every kingdom the other is at war with and last for 90 days.
War[]
War functions the same as it does in Native with a greater emphasis on differing religions. Factions with different religions have a higher chance to declare war on each other than neighboring factions of the same religion, and may even declare war without provocation due to religious differences. At the beginning of the game, certain rulers dislike each other personally. If these two factions enter into a war, they will almost certainly not make peace until one faction is destroyed. The factions where rulers dislike each other personally include:
- Teutonic Order and Kingdom of Lithuania
- Kingdom of Denmark and Golden Horde
- Golden Horde and Ilkhanate
- Kingdom of England and Kingdom of France (dislike not strong enough to make gameplay impact)
- Gaelic Kingdoms and Kingdom of England
- Roman Empire of Nicaea and Latin Empire (which are already at war)
- Crusader States and Mamluk Sultanate
Due to the size of the map, defeating more than one faction almost immediately ensures that the player or their faction is the strongest faction in Europe. This will cause alarm in neighboring nations, who may declare war to curb their power if the player is already at war. This can quickly become obnoxious, thus it is advisable to raise relations with factions that the player does not intend to destroy in the near future and sign a trade agreement with them so that they cannot attack the player.
Staring a Kingdom[]
Founding a kingdom in 1257 is similar to Native, however, due to the size of the map, the location where players begin their kingdom plays an important role to the progression of their campaign. Beginning in England, for example, and focusing on conquering it in its entirety provides a natural defenses by sea against invasion. However, it once it's conquered, the player is limited to expanding into France by necessity, as the closest faction otherwise is the Kingdom of Norway, which takes several days to sail to at default speed and any fiefs conquered can quickly become indefensible.
As previously mentioned, if starting a Catholic faction, founding it near Italy is not recommended. If founding a faction with a different religion, where the player begins matters less, as recognition must be sought the same as in Native (albeit with the aforementioned limitations). However, changing the faction's religion to anything other than Roman Catholicism will make all 30 Catholic nations suspicious of the player due to religious differences.
Factions[]
These are all of the 42 in game factions (as of version 1.03)
|
|
|
External links[]
Gallery[]
Some screenshots of the map:
Some screenshots of the game:
- ↑ The mod takes place, as the name implies, in 1257 AD, which is shortly after the Mongols began withdrawing from Europe. As a result, they no longer occupy the Kingdom of Hungary, but the Kingdom of Hungary is still at war with the Golden Horde at the beginning of the game.
- ↑ If the player wishes to cheat, a save editor can be used to set the Papal States' relation with other Catholic nations to 0 and reciprocate it. This will prevent relation from dropping with the Papal States or other Catholic nations if either is attacked.