1. Azgad-a Story Of Calradia

Jul 28, 2012  About this mod. Hundred years of wars suffered the whole continent and exhausted hopes in people's hearts. When the sleeping evil was waked up, a.

Calradia is the setting of the first two Mount&Blade games and the prequel, Bannerlord. There are five factions in the original Mount&Blade and six in Mount&Blade: Warband, each with a ruler, a claimant, twenty vassals and a collection of fiefs that make up each faction's region.

The land of Calradia is neither static nor affected only by the player's actions. Each faction is free to wage war, form alliances, or sign peace treaties with other factions.

Nobles and kings lead their war parties across Calradia, attending tournaments, feasts, and collecting taxes from fiefs entrusted to them. During times of war, they plunder enemy villages, attack opposing armies in the field, and seek to conquer castles and towns through siege warfare.

Law and order are the exception, rather than the rule, in Calradia. Deserters and bandits of all sorts harass trade routes and attack villagers whilst evading attacks from bands of manhunters seeking the bounties on their heads. Farmers traveling to market to sell their harvest and caravans traveling from town to town trading goods must fend off looters and thieves seeking to reap what they did not sow. Lords are also threatened by the chaos; fiefs regularly change hands during wartime. Even the kings of each faction are not safe. Claimants to the throne travel across the land, seeking brave and adventurous allies to back their claims and launch civil wars.

Calradia roughly means 'ruled by the council' in old Slavic languages.

GeographyEdit

Calradia in Mount&BladeEdit

The land of Calradia resembles a continental terrain bordered by a mountain chain to the south and a snow plain to the east. It holds eight rivers, two that end in deltas, three dozen forests of varying sizes, and one lake. The earth is predominantly green except in the steppes, where it appears to be drier, and in the snow field, where it is covered with snow.

Calradia in WarbandEdit

Due to the fact that a new faction was added (Sarranid Sultanate) and there was no place to squeeze in the kingdom, the Warband map is completely redesigned from the vanilla map. Most notable is the addition of a southern desert, while still bearing similar climatic zones such as steppes and tundra.

The new map turns Calradia more into a rounded peninsula, akin in a few ways to Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings. Converting the map from a square to a more ball-shaped landmass has the advantage of making fewer parts of the map isolated and awkwardly detached, as areas like around Aldelen, Tulbuk, and Tebandra were in the original map.

Calradia in BannerlordEdit

Bannerlord's Calradia is somewhat similar to the general layout from Warband, but takes place around 200 years earlier. It covers a larger area and has more mountains to create choke points.

HistoryEdit

The true history of Calradia is quite vague. The only characters whose lives are described in any detail are monarchs, claimants, and heroes. However, it is implied that the factions have been at war for a very long time, and that the player is the only person who has any chance of bringing about peace.

An ancient Calrad (or sometimes Calradic) Empire is frequently mentioned by the various heroes as predating all of the kingdoms. Matheld speaks of how the first Nords to arrive in Calradia were hired to man the Empire's galleys, for instance. Lezalit says that the Empire utilized all of the fighting styles represented in its empire, but that eventually 'the tribes' destroyed the Empire.

The fourth game in the series, and third canonical, Bannerlord, will feature the Calradic Empire shortly before its fall.

Other companions speak of how Praven was the largest city under the Empire, and of the Imperial heritage that suffuses the region around Suno. Overall, very little of its actual history is ever revealed, but it is obvious that the Calrad Empire fell apart and was split into several kingdoms.

Outside of Calradia Edit

It is apparent that there are other nations and realms in the Mount&Blade world. Examples include the County of Geroia, from which Lezalit claims his noble lineage as the Count's second son, and Marnid reveals as his place of origin; and Balion, a realm beyond Calradia's western coast, far over the sea described in the profile of Konrad, a Custom Battle character. There is also land called Jumne (or Nordland) to the north of Calradia, where the Kingdom of Nords claim their roots lie. There is also another place named Lokti, which is only mentioned once in Argo Sendnar's description. The player character is also described as a foreigner, and many heroes speak of leaving their homelands to seek their destiny in Calradia.

Mount and Blade: Warband

Mount and Blade: Warband is the exclusive expansion game to the original Mount and Blade. Mount & Blade: Warband is a hack-and-slash action-adventure rpg much like the original, but Warband has improved graphics, AI, combat, animations and most importantly online play. But still, there are many bugs and issues with Mount and Blade: Warband. The answer to those issues is by modding Mount and Blade: Warband. But with so many mods to choose from, what is a lonely medieval warrior wannabe supposed to do? Thats why this handy guide was written, to show you the top 5 best Mount and Blade: Warband mods.

5. Diplomacy

Single player Mount and Blade: Warband is much like the original Mount and Blade. With a detailed overworld map, engaging free-play campaign mode and epic army on army action, Warband still delivers an exciting single player campaign. However, the Mount and Blade: Warband mod Diplomacy makes the single player campaign much deeper than almost any other mod. You see, a new addition to Warband is a much greater emphasis on Kingdom Management, and diplomacy allows for a great deal of freedom in that department. Some improvements include an alliance/traitor system, a faction culture system that helps lord not choose bad troops, a choice between domestic policy, some economic options, and a host of other anti-enemy options as well. These improvements allow for an almost political warfare type minigame to emerge, deepening the addiction of many rpg lovers worldwide.

4. Blood and Steel

Do you wake up in the morning and power down a Musclemilk for breakfast? Go base-jumping for meditation? Are you on a first name basis with Chuck Norris? Well if so, you will probably love Mount and Blade: Warband Blood and Steel. Blood and Steel says it perfectly, it is a 'very hardcore tactical combat simulation with a lot of 'what-if' scenarios in it- for example, we get to find out what it might have been like if the Roman Empire had continued to exist, and continued to use heavy infantry tactics versus medieval shock-cavalry forces'. Emphasis on the hardcore.

Blood and Steel improves Mount and Blade:Warband combat to make hitting someone actually mean something other than '22 damage!'. Instead of normal sieges of 200-400 smelly Nords, think more like a calm hurricane of 1500+ vikings all aiming to pull an arm or leg off of your body. However, the best improvement in Blood and Steel is the completely satisfying enemy AI, gone are the days of horses getting stuck on rocks. Also appreciated is the focus on reworked equipment; an arrow actually kills people now. The fun in Blood and Steel is mainly in the challenge, and the satisfaction in simply surviving the most intense battles in Mount and Blade ever. That is why Blood and Steel is in the top 5 best Mount and Blade: Warband mods.

3. Prophecy of Pendor

One of the most popular Mount and Blade mods, Prophecy of Pendor has now been ported over to Mount and Blade: Warband! While this alone would have been enough to vault Pendor into the top 5 best Mount and Blade Warband mods list, there have also been some improvements to the base Pendor mod.

First off, many textures have been reworked to fit into Warband's graphical changes, meaning that Pendor is even more beautiful and varied than before. Second, the enemy AI has been revamped completely, gone are the days of peasants charging headlong into 100 strong filthy Nord armies, now enemies can run away from battle. Also, there are new formations, such as wedge and column that help you annihilate annoying enemies such as dirty Nordic warlords. Lastly, the randomly spawning named enemies have gotten a tweak that makes them spawn at rates a little less absurd, making the single player campaign for Mount and Blade: Warband much more enjoyable.

I had no clue how big a difference Skyboxes actually made until I looked at Tiragarde Sound in BFA, it's insane. It changes everything,. World of warcraft skybox game. Wouldn't it be nice to have a handful of new skyboxes for the old zones? That sky box over the vale of eternal blossoms is the worst for me,.

2. Battle Sizer Mod

Ah, the old standby best Mount and Blade mod; Battle Sizer Mod. Thankfully, this mod still works with Mount and Blade: Warband, although with the new graphical changes it can be slightly unstable if driven to extreme levels, such as 400+ unit battles. It also takes a little bit of technical know-how, or following directions to the T, as you do have to change the config.txt file in order to use the mod.

Still, Battle Sizer Mod is one of those once in a lifetime epiphanies, like trying a slice of real New York pizza for the first time. Once you see an epic battle of 200 vs. 200 you will never want to play Mount and Blade Warband the same again. This beautiful little mod gives us the warfare we all wanted to see. That is why it is the number two best Mount and Blade Warband mod ever.

1. cRPG

I know that all of you are probably saying, 'Why are there no multiplayer mods in this stupid list? Isn't that what Warband is all about?'. And you are all correct. That is about to change now, because the only multiplayer mod for Mount and Blade Warband you will ever need is cRPG.

Azgad-a Story Of Calradia

cRPG makes the inconsistent, buggy and hacker filled world of Mount and Blade Warband multiplayer mods take a 180-turn for greatness. This mod actually has several multiplayer overhauls written into its code, including more balanced weapons and equipment and improved matchmaking and server stability. While those are nice and certainly needed, the biggest reason why cRPG is on this list is because it adds a persistent multiplayer world, where your character gains levels and loot based on how well you kill other players in real-time. There is strategy, team-based play options and a deep and addicting grind. There is not much else to say about cRPG, other than this is the best Mount and Blade Warband mod available today.

This post is part of the series: Mount and Blade Mods