The effort that must have went into overhauling Warband to make this DLC look and play like it does deserves a lot of praise, and the continued support by the developers to get rid of bugs with the help of the community is something that is sadly too rare in the game industry. The sea battles are epic, the seiges are improved, polearms are useful, and lords actually use formations. All of the things I just mentioned are straight up improvements to the base game, to the point where it looks more like Bannerlord than Warband in terms of features and mechanics. However, like everything in this world except maybe Ryan Gosling, this DLC isn't perfect. While archery was overpowered in Warband, in Viking Conquest bows are just useless, and while archery during this era was mostly for hunting and not war, historical accuracy doesn't seem like a major concern considering how strong crossbows are in comparison, not to mention the fact that quivers hold 40 arrows while bags of sling ammunition hold about twenty rocks. Additionally, earning money before you get your first town requires either killing lots of vikings (which are the strongest units in the game except for expensive, high tier troops) or a lot of repetitive trading (sell wool at buy wine in Ribe, sell wine and buy wool from other villages and towns, repeat until rich), and while you can avoid this problem by starting a game as a lord or even king, I would argue that the reason I as well as many other fans of Mount & Blade like the franchise is because of the rags to riches role-playing. Money may not be such a big problem if it weren't for the fact that you need a lot of it to buy a ship, so if you're crazy like me and start in Ireland, it's difficult to leave your starting location (although you CAN pay for a ship to ferry you). Yet if you enjoy this time period as much as I do, then you will probably enjoy it as much as I do, despite these problems and the occasional crash. :)
