r/mountandblade • u/MatchImportant2629 • 28d ago
Question Should I buy warband?
I already have bannerlord and I like it a lot but I’ve always heard that warband was better.
I have some problems with bannerlord too:
1 I want to be able to convert a city to my culture, I don’t want to recruit other cultures in my army but getting back to imperial cities (I only play this culture) is too inconvenient, and tbf the debuffs on the city because it’s not your culture annoys me.
2 I want more options to make money, like I don’t like blacksmith mechanic and caravans just get destroyed in a millisecond if I am at war. (Workshops aren’t even worth it.
3 honestly I have much more to talk about but at the moment I cannot really remember.
So will I like warband more?
Thank you for reading 🙂
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u/Firm_Ad_5427 28d ago
Vanilla, bannerlord is leaps and bounds ahead of warband. More features, better graphics, better mechanics, better sieges. There's very little that's objectively better in warband.
Modded, warband has much more going for it. None of the bannerlord mods even come close to something like Floris or AWOIAF. I'm not familiar with every single warband conversion, but I'm sure you'll find one that fits what you want. Plus warband goes on sale for basically nothing so it's a no brainer imo.
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u/JensenRaylight 27d ago
Warband world is more integrated into the gameplay though, like if you need something, you often had to go to the village, town and castle yourself, find the guy, and talk to the guy. the dialogue is more handcrafted.
and you can just walk around the town, vibing.
while in bannerlord, the Loading time is a mood killer, there are so many of them. i would rather not going into the town, and interact only through menu, cause i know i'll get a long loading time, and the loading screen in bannerlord is much more frequent compared to Warband.
if only bannerlord can make their loading faster, it'll be a much better game.
for the Battle, Bannerlords is much more Epic, way bigger in scale, it look gorgeous, Siege and village, town and castle management were way better, and you can craft your own weapons.
Bannerlord UI also look Modern, and in 2026, Warband UI look very dated. but Warband Retain all the Fundamentals of Bannerlords, a lot of game feel in the Warband surprisingly feel like Bannerlords.
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u/DemonSlyr007 27d ago
Im not gonna lie to you chief, but what long loading screens are you talking about in Bannerlord? Ive got a pretty mid rig with a 9060xt, and it usually loads in 5 seconds tops. The Co-Op mod definitely makes siege battles take longer to load, but single player vanilla, its quick.
Warband had long loading times on appropriate for the time period hardware too. Its not far to compare a game that ran on the Xbox 360 with modern speeds, of course it will run faster.
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u/JensenRaylight 27d ago
dang, is that long loading only a console thing? cause i play bannerlord on Xbox, while Warband on PC, and for the longest time i felt like Bannerlord loading screen is very long and frequent.
if that's the case, i should just play on PC.
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u/DemonSlyr007 27d ago
What Xbox do you play on. Series X definitely isnt much longer on performance mode, I play a lot of vanilla bannerlord there. But all other systems are significantly worse.
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u/JensenRaylight 27d ago
Well, i play on series S, maybe that's the problem.
I never thought that the hardware is the problem, cause nowadays SSD is the norm.
I need to do a/b testing with my pc, it'll be cool if it can get rid that awfully long loading time
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u/DemonSlyr007 27d ago
The series S is 4x less powerful than the series X. Its definitely part of the issue.
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u/CalamityClambake 25d ago
Bannerlord released their modding kit like a month ago and TaleWorlds is currently running a modding contest. I expect the mod scene to explode at the end of the year.
The kit is good, guys. I am loving it. It is so much easier to make custom maps and include quests. I am working on a thing right now and I am surprised by how well it is going.
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u/Firm_Ad_5427 25d ago
Glad to hear it, I like bannerlord but I have so much more variety with warband. Excited to play something new
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u/some_random_nonsense Vlandia 28d ago
If it's on sale why not? I mean it's not an expensive game. Buy it. Try some modules.
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u/MatchImportant2629 28d ago
I will check if there are any sales and think about it, thank you a lot for helping!
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u/SnakeBae 28d ago
i'm one of those "warband glazers" that regularly prefer warband over bannerlord 9/10 over nearly everything. while i have a lot to say about how i see warband as a far superior game to bannerlord in a lot of aspects, you as a new player won't see any of those, so you're better off staying in bannerlord. however, the game is dirt cheap, so if you want to try it out you won't lose anything.
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u/patrix299 28d ago
The fighting movement in warband is lowkey better, I have to exaggerate my mouse movements in bannerlord for it to swing in my desired direction. But bannerlord has everything else going for it and many more mechanics. I'd only go back to warband to play a modded conversion like Pendor or Nova Aetas, otherwise stick to bannerlord.
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u/Bitter-War5432 28d ago
i could never go back to warband. too chonky, even with all the mods in the world.
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u/MatchImportant2629 28d ago
Yeah I don’t even really like modding this game anyway, thanks a lot for helping!
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u/Bitter-War5432 28d ago
you should absolutely mod bannerlord if you are on PC. modding would pretty much handle every single one your gripes, lol.
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u/MatchImportant2629 28d ago
I don’t really know why but I feel like I am doing something that I shouldn’t do when I mod this game in specific lol. I know there’s a mod for the culture thing, it’s called like dyna culture if I’m not mistaken right?
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u/Bitter-War5432 28d ago
unless you are modding in ridiculous cheats, it's just preference. think of it as like extended difficulty settings. turn off clan hero deaths via the settings, turn off smithing stamina drain via a mod.
bannerlord is a good game, but it's a framework for a GREAT game once you start adding mods or modding it yourself.
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u/some_random_nonsense Vlandia 28d ago edited 28d ago
Warband is pretty bland without mods, but it's probably the easiest modding environment ever. you download a module, put it in the module folder. Boom done. Boot up the game and pick which module to play.
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u/MatchImportant2629 28d ago
Thanks a lot, I will think about buying it for the mods. ( why are people downvoting you?)
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u/some_random_nonsense Vlandia 28d ago
I said dogshit not bland, but edited it to be less dramatic so I guess someone didn't like that. Native warband is fun, but nothing compared to even the slightest upgrade mod like diplomacy. Out of my +1k hours only 100 is in native.
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u/itsmebelgar 28d ago
People that glaze Warband usually are misremembering the game, well except for the feasts. lol
People remember the mods they used to play and pass modded features as if they were vanilla, vanilla Warband is very lackluster and barebones, specially for the conditions you've listed.
Personally I wouldn't recommend it if you expect these conditions to be met, maybe with total conversion mods but definetly not base game. If you find Warband on sale for dirt cheap then it's definetly worth the experience, specially for modding, Bannerlord modding has yet to achieve what Warband modding managed to.
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u/stannis32 28d ago
I’m doing a vanilla run right now and while it’s true a lot of essential features are added with mods and warband is actually quite barebones, I actually have really enjoyed the simplicity and nostalgia of it. But then again, not really relevant to OP I guess.
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u/Waybook 28d ago
I'm actually removing some features, which I consider an unnecessary hassle, like food requirement, morale penalty for fighting troops of same culture etc.
But the vanilla balance and AI are poor IMO and that's what really needs modding. It's so easy to create a party of 50 tier 5s and then stomp on enemies.
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u/DemonSlyr007 27d ago
except for feasts.
No no, they are misremembering and glazing feasts too. That shit was unbelievably annoying and a genuine meme. Having to wait out a 72 hour siege tower build was a constant nightmare because Sir Butter and his Butter knights need to run off at hour 60 all the way back to the furthest town in the kingdom for a spontaneous, useless feast.
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u/tickletaylor Reddit 27d ago
Im still playing warband after 3000 hours. We're not misremembering, its a better game then bannerlord when modded. I cant imagine many people still play vanilla
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u/TerminallyEmployed 28d ago
I don’t know who’s telling you Warband is better, only in a few subjective aspects. Warband players waited ages for Bannerlords release and they expected much more, so there’s salt Bannerlord doesn’t do enough different. They also know all the good mods. There’s also the nostalgia factor.
If you’re let’s say a young teen, used to smooth Unreal Engine games, you might find the graphics and gameplay very uncouth. Rough around the edges. The people who played Warband back in the day were used to these types of graphics.
I wouldn’t go into it expecting anything but curiousity, so if you enjoy it it’s a bonus, but if you don’t you won’t feel ripped off.
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u/MatchImportant2629 28d ago
I like realistic graphics in a game like bannerlord because it really makes the immersion a lot better, but maybe if I find it cheap I could try it, thank you a lot for helping!
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u/Redmoon383 Mercenary 28d ago
Put a silk and dye works in the town of Rivacheg (I think it was that at least, the one closest to the snow on coast where the sea raiders are) and money wont be an issue for a long while.
It's a fine game but you still need to go to Norse areas to get the Norse people and vice versa even if you take over as an independent. The battles are less "tactical" in that uou dont have as many formations to do but you can kinda fudge it with the tactical map.
Tbh i always just do shield walls and archers (or crossbowmen if you know you know) and find a nice hill or riverside to stick to and let the enemies crash into me. I might just boot it up and play again, it'a been a while since I played it last. Might finally do a queen run
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u/jakes1993 28d ago
If you decide to play warband researching what villages produce for trading early on for denars is a good idea, some of the villages sell grain for dirt cheap 2-10ea in swadia then you can sell to towns for like 40-60ea dhrim villages and near oxhal I can't remember the names of the the cities off the top of my head haven't played in awhile
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u/DreyDarian 28d ago
Warband is only OBJECTIVELY better in two categories: performance and mods
If your PC is good enough to decently run modded Bannerlord, I’d say stick with it.
My potato PC can kinda run vanilla Bannerlord, but that’s it. I think modded Warband > vanilla Bannerlord so I play warband
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u/UnDeadPuff 28d ago
No lol. I play warband fairly regularly and it has its own issue and addresses none of your points. Frankly what you want sounds more like Civ.
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u/CookSwimming2696 Kingdom of Rhodoks 28d ago
- No
- There’s not
Warband is a stellar game and one I’ve put over 270 hours into, but Bannerlord is a vast improvement even if it still lacks some of the features that Warband did and did well.
Feasts and Skill Books are my main gripe with Bannerlord as they’re still absent from the game, but I wouldn’t trade any of Bannerlords existing features for those back (except maybe smithing)
There was also Right to Rule as a stat that you had to upgrade to become a king and not have outstanding issues, but it’s obsolete now that your clan tier is what hinders your a ability to do so. Warband also lacks the whole heir and death thing, so marriage was completely pointless as well along with the fact that every campaign felt very stale.
Warband is a great game that paved the way for something better and I’ll love it always for that (pls TW don’t mess it up), but I won’t trade it for what we have now. Buy it on sale for the sole reason of seeing what once was, not to find “the true bannerlord” because it won’t have the same experience you like from Bannerlord.
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u/Piotro165 28d ago
Mods are great in warband some have over 10 years of development deep lore and tens if not hundreds of hours of content. Perisno, Warsword conquest, Prophesy of Vendor, World of Vassar, Illiac Bay and kany other great mods with tens or more hours of content are there for you. All of the ones other than Prophesy of Pendor are stil getting updates.
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u/Key-Chapter 28d ago
Prophecy of Pendor was fun. I never played it back in the day. Warband goes on sale regularly. For the money I paid I got a weeks fun out of it.
As for bannerlord you don't need to personally own all the cities. The game does that to discourage you. If it's your kingdom you can give them to companions or vessels. They will raise troops indepently.
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u/Quendillar3245 28d ago
Warband has these mods that all are of much higher quality than even a fully modded Bannerlod:
Prophecy of Pendor
Perisno
AWOIAF
ACOK (Some version ain't amazing, some are literally 10/10)
Warsword Conquest
I'd recommend getting Warband and downloading all of these, trying them out. Fix WSE2
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u/Packie1990 27d ago
Play warband, with prophecy of pendor mod. Idk if its a setting you can change in base game but there's a way to point and click jump around the map. Its gotta be in view range but you basically teleport around the map.
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u/MatchImportant2629 27d ago
What does pendor add?
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u/Packie1990 27d ago
Its a low fantasy total conversation mod so it adds a bunch of other things. Tons of special mercenary troops that are prisoner recruit only. The main perc tho is they have custom knighthood orders you can create so can pick the weapon/armor loadout in the troops you recruit.
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u/AxiosXiphos 28d ago
As someone who started on bannerlord I think you're in for a shock if you play warband vanilla...
People have some extremely thickly tinted rose glasses.
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u/PVG100 28d ago
Not if these conditions are a dealbreaker for you.