Mount & Blade: Warband - Viking Conquest Reforged Edition

The Viking Conquest expansion for M&B Warband enhances the already solid base on which it is built by including a range of additional game mechanics that create an even better player experience. The enthusiasm and love for their creation of the developers is on display in the meticulous recreation of the period and their imagination and skill find an expression in tweaks to the basic formula that manage to complement and enhance the underlying base. There are numerous adaptations to Warband to make VC stand out as a distinct game of which some deserve special mention. An emphasis on dismounted combat and the inclusion of naval engagements add interesting variations to the original. The ability to create a stronghold as a home base without having to enter vassalage with any faction is a welcome alteration. Hunting as a minigame is a proper medieval pastime that subsequently seems an odd omission when returning to the TaleWorld games. Period appropriate religious differences have an impact on several aspects of play. These differences all combine to foster a fuller enjoyment of the game environment in which one can live out the fantasy of being an early medieval warlord.

Viking Conquest is hands down peak M&B experience (at least when it comes to official releases). Better than Bannerlord, certainly better than Warband, in my opinion better than any other dlc. It's diverse, complex, interesting and demanding. Great battles, great role-play, great atmosphere, tons of new features, big and small. It offers a decent story mode, along with a classic sandbox experience. If you like the idea of Vikings, Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Frisians clashing for land and riches on the gloomy fields of post-roman Britain, then just play it. It's like having the Vikings series mixed with R. E. Howard's less known tales like "Grey God Passes" or Cormac Mac Art stories into one experience.

Great mod/expansion for M&B. Plays way better than most mods for me (loading time and performance in general)

They did thier best to provide something that is effectively a Total Conversion. They did thier best to add a singleplayer campaign. They added some really nice features like Seabattles and Troop techtrees ingame. They added tons of new Interface Options, quests and other comfort/quality of life features. In most regards this is a totally new game. What they utterly failed at is any form of information about the custom stuff: It would be really nice to know that there is perma-death in the campaign and how many troops you need for a campaign fight where there is permadeath. It would have been nice to know that training, riding and archery have been rendered nearly obsolete (kinda a important part of a game called MOUNT and blade). Or even just how the skill/leveling system works with the total rework. It would have been realy nice to have any form of overview over how the alternate rules affect such minor gameplay things as recruiting, getting higher tier units, morale based on loot sharing/travel, the personality types, religions, etc. It would have been tripply nice to know that the Character creation has about 10 times more influence on the play (due to much fewer atribute points). Or what any of those choices DO to your character. It is no fun to play a blind trial and error game that decides the enjoment of the rest of the game more then any decision inside said game. If they had told me any of this or at least told me that not a smidgen of my vanilla experience would apply, I might have been able to remotely enjoy the singleplayer campaign. Right now I am just pissed off at paying for this, but I give it some try later. Required reading/watching for the makers: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCPcn-Q5nKE (startin with Point 5 in particular) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs (the clarity of information part)

I'm a few hours in. So far it's Warband with a Viking-era coat of paint ... so, it's fun! Nice to have a storyline providing (optional) structure to the standard sandbox. But it crashes to desktop at least once per hour. Hard to recommend. I've had nothing gamebreaking, it just requires restarting the game ... which makes the load times annoying. So you'll want to keep your finger close to the quicksave, and be patient. Playing on mac.