Rebellion

So, each of the three big factions in the game has their own special questline. I didn’t do the Cossack Hetmanate one, The Secret of the Black Mace, on my main character because, well, it requires starting a rebellion within the Commonwealth at one point and I had already sworn my oath to Hmelnitski. I wasn’t willing to ask him to release me from his service. BUT … I have that other character Ani, my ‘let’s play as a woman’ project. She had started the questline as well, and despite gaining much favour with the Cossacks they had not allowed her to join them. So since she was still neutral I decided to work on it with her. She had to go find Janusz Radziwill, the Grand Hetman of Lithuania, and help him overthrow King Jan Kasimir.

So, the first quest he gives me is to capture a city or fortress, so that we have a capital to work out of. Obviously, I cannot accomplish this alone. So I go talk to various Poles, hoping they like me or Janusz enough to join us. Those that agree who hold fiefs, well, those holdings automatically switch sides to Polish Commonwealth (rebels). Those who don’t, we have to fight (if I approached them in the field to ask them). And yes, Janusz does fight by my side.

I was able to gain Berestye Fortress and Lida Castle this way when Jerzy Halecki and Jan Sobieski agreed to aid us. Jan Zamojski also came along for the ride, but he had no holdings. Ok, so, those castles don’t count since they already have lords. We still need to capture one. We rode around to the Pole-owned fortresses, asking for more joiners and looking for one that had a low enough number of defenders that we could take it. The only one that had low defense at the moment was Myadzelsk Castle, owned by Andrejz (Andrezj? Andrzej. Silly Polish spellings. Can we just settle on calling him Andrei?) Kmicic. I didn’t really want to take his castle without first asking Pan Andrei to join us, but he wasn’t home and I didn’t know where to find him. So after a couple of circles around all of the other options, I just took it.

Once Janusz was settled in, he sent us to capture Kiev, which turns into a Polish town automatically at that point in the questline. I was a bit upset about that, I mean, they put Anton out of his city just like that with no warning or battle or anything! So we rode over and found that the city defenses were about equal to our numbers. Hm, doable but it wasn’t going to be easy. So we set about besieging it and after the first battle, as we were laying explosives for the second assault, Oginsky went to Myadzelsk. Oh. Yeah. We probably should defend that eh? But we’ve almost got this … I made the fateful decision to stick with my siege. It didn’t succeed, but Oginsky sure did. With the defeat of Radziwill, the rebellion was ended in its infancy. Jerzy, Jan, and Jan went back to serving King Jan and I was left neutral. Lesson learned, defend your new fief first! And maybe try to take something closer to Kiev as your capital so that you are nearby if needed.

Alone and in despair, I rode up to Lavrin Sinonos to vent my frustration. He offered me a mercenary contract with the Cossacks (finally). So that attempt ended in failure and that character is now just another Cossack. I made a new character to have another attempt at the questline. I also helped my new Cossack brothers take back Kiev, which was then given back to Anton, thank God. I would have really felt awful if I had inadvertently caused him to permanently lose his city.

Oh, a funny thing happened before all of this. I happened to be visiting Kiev on business and noticed that Jan Skrzetuski was being held in the prison there. So I took a walk around to see if the guards would let me in to talk to him. They did, so I wandered around and then chatted with him a bit. One of the options that always comes up when talking to another lord is “What are you and your men doing here?” So I figured I had to see what he would say.

Easy there, Jan! Geez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the cell this morning, eh? hehe

Lords in the Field 2

Something really awesome happened last night. All we had left for the raid week was Garrosh, who we can’t do on heroic until we kill Blackfuse on heroic, so we got the rest of the night off after we knocked him out. Naturally, that meant more time for Mount & Blade.

I helped Hmelnitski and a few others take Izum Fortress and then he was done with me, but often in those cases I have nothing more pressing to do so I continue to follow along. We went over to Izmail to take it back from the Crimeans, but all of the Tsar’s forces came and drove us away. (Yes, some dummy decided we should go to war with the Muscovites. At least peace was declared with Sweden not long after. Two fronts is enough!) As we were scattering it became apparent that they were going to catch Hmelnitski and pile on him. He anticipated this, and put up a vote for a new Marshal. I got notice that I was being considered, and could choose to accept putting my name up for the vote, or tell him that I am too busy for such things. Ha! Yeah. I have no land and nothing else to do. Damn straight put my name in! I wish I had screenshotted the final vote. Oh well. It was 8 to 3 in favor of me over Gomon.

Now, from what I’ve seen, there are pretty much three types of Marshals. The Marshal, by the way, is basically the head general. He is in charge of all military operations. The ones that are pretty much universally considered bad are the ones that sit on their butts in their Fortress and don’t even do their job. There are also ones that *I* consider bad but others might think are just fine because of a difference of opinion in strategies. These are the ones that take our army all the way across the map to lay siege to some fortress deep in enemy territory, leaving no defense behind so that even if they take that one, we lose two back home. I hate that. I’m all about shoring up our defenses and responding to what the enemy is doing. If they lay siege to one of our fortresses, my troops are right there to break it up. Only when our territory is safe, do I go about trying to take more.

My dear friend Anton Zhdanovich was one of the three who voted against me. So of course, I got him back by having the army gather at his home in Kiev and making him go on the campaign with me. Anton is one of my favorite guys to hang out with. He is unique, because he doesn’t ride. Instead, he has this big old matchlock musket and walks down the field with the rest of the marksmen. His musketmen complement my preference for cavalry very nicely, so we make a good team.

Once enough nobles had gathered, the first order of business was to take back Izmail and Ladyzhyn. While we were doing that, the large group of Muscovites that had beaten Hmelnitski earlier laid siege to Bratslav. I checked out their numbers and decided we didn’t quite have enough men. So I stopped by Korsun and asked Doroschenko to join us. Now we at least had equal numbers. We rode over and challenged them and … wait. What? We had about 300 more men than we should have and they … hold on. There are two Muscovites fighting on our side. I don’t quite know how it happened. They weren’t ones that I am friendly with. Perhaps they were just mad at the guy leading their raid and wanted to take him out? I don’t know. But yeah .. with 1000 vs. 400 instead of 700 vs. 700, we were assured of a victory.

We broke up a couple of other sieges at Izmail and Ladyzhyn because naturally they tried to take them back. We also went and got back the Sich, which had been taken a long time ago by the Khanate, and then taken from them by the Muscovites, who we were not at war with at that time so we had no way to get it back. We did end up losing Izmail again, and I just ran out of time to get it back before I really had to call it a night and go to bed.

Let’s see, this is just about long enough, so we’ll post a dude that I have nothing to say about. Here, have some Hmara.

Glorious Battle

I have two other things to post about this week, but I cannot get this out of my mind. It simply has to get written first, even though there are no screenshots and none of you probably really care about this game. I promise to get back to WoW/Hearthstone tomorrow. Honest!

So, I made multiple games in Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword so that I could try out getting in with the other factions. I messed around with them enough to be made a full noble with a fief in Sweden, to have a mercenary contract with the Crimean Khanate, and to start an uprising in the Tsardom which would ultimately lead to me being named Tsar if I kept playing and jumped through all the right hoops. I’ve gotten nowhere with Poland, although King Jan considers me a friend. But no matter which one of those I’m playing, in my heart, I long to fight alongside my Cossack brothers. So after two or three hours spent in each of those, I have pretty much set the others aside and just played with my original character since then.

These Swedes keep trying to loot and burn my village. Fortunately, each time I have been nearby and have been able to thwart their attempts. The first time, I had a quest from one of the other Cossack nobles to bring him a lord of Sweden that he could use in a prisoner exchange, so I captured him and turned him in to, um … dang, one of the Ivans. Fedorenko I think. The next time, I let him go. And then I fought another Swede who I captured, but I let him go also. Now all of a sudden there are Swedes in my friend list. Ones that I have never even met! I guess they appreciate my honor rating.

After one of these battles, I run into Colonel Anton Zhdanovich and ask him what he and his men are up to. He’s heading out to lay siege to Minsk, so I follow, along with Colonel Bogdan Popovich and Army Chief Pavlo Gomon. Just as we are about to arrive, a Swede passes by on his way to Slutsk. I mouse over him and see that he is the one who recently captured our friend Colonel Prokop Shumeiko. I’m like, ‘Guys. Hey, guys! Look, he has Prokop! Let’s go rescue him!’ … And they’re all like, ‘Naw, man, we’re besieging this fortress. Priorities yo!’ Yeah … I left them to it and played cat and mouse with the Swede, trying to lure him close enough to them that one of them would help out. He was too crafty though, and I ended up having to make a decision … either take him on myself, or let him make it to Slutsk, where he would imprison my ally and the only way to rescue him THEN would be to capture the entire fortress. So I challenged him. I get in the battle and of course it’s nighttime (I hate night battles) and my horse seems really slow. I check and sure enough … I forgot that my beloved spirited courser had been injured in that last battle, and was now lame. I have a heavy thoroughbred also, but I can’t swap mid-battle. At least, not to my own horse. What I CAN do though, is get on someone else’s horse after the rider has been killed. Naturally it comes down to me by myself vs. a half dozen of his men. No way am I going to be able to ride them down on Skipper. I ride him over to a loose troop horse and switch. He’s kinda slow, but faster than my lame boy, so I make progress. But he was at half health when I picked him up and soon he is one hit away from going down. I ride away from the enemies in search of another mount, and find a thoroughbred standing clear at the edge of the map. He’s a nice one and we quickly dispatch the last of the enemies. Shumeiko is free and eternally grateful. I change horses in my inventory so that I don’t have to go through that mount-swapping mess again (lame horses recover if you leave them in your inventory for awhile and don’t ride them) and return to my comrades’ siege at Minsk.

Before the siege is successful, however, a large group of Polish nobles comes to defend it. They out number us, even if you add all four of our armies together. One of them engages Zhdanovich and the rest quickly pile on. I wait and watch to see what Poppy and Gomon are going to do. They stand by. I’m wringing my hands wishing there was something I could do, but it would be suicide to beat myself up on that mess. So I stand by with them, praying that Anton can escape. He does, and we scatter. Popovich and Gomon lead some of them away in one direction, while Anton and I head the other way, forcing them to choose whether to all follow one group or to split up themselves. One or two follow them, but most follow us. One small group is faster than the rest and catches up, but we dispatch him quickly. Just outside of Chernigov, the other three that followed get in another battle with Anton. I assess the situation and even though they outnumber the two of us by slightly more than 100 soldiers, I cannot stand idly by again. I rush to his defense. At least this time it is daylight and I am mounted on a healthy steed. The key section of this battle comes down to me alone against a half dozen men on foot and a half dozen riders. I’m not usually one to boast, but I’m not gonna lie, either … my skill with a lance is unmatched. Patience is the key. My horse is faster and more maneuverable than their mounts. I string them along behind me while picking off the men on the ground one by one. Then I go about taking care of the horsemen, one at a time. Some I only manage to get the horse and have to circle back around and get them once they are on foot. Others I manage to take right out of the saddle. At the end, all three armies are defeated. Sure, Anton and I only had like a dozen men left between us that weren’t injured or unconscious, but we routed THREE Polish armies. He was quick to proclaim me his BFF.

Sadly, once Skipper recovered, he was only a regular courser instead of a spirited one, so his speed dropped. He’s still faster than any horse on the field other than another courser, but I am sad. Next on the to-do list is to check the markets and see if I can find another spirited one. I guess the two points isn’t really necessary … I mean, his speed now is 50 and Teddy’s is 48, and I run down everything on Teddy just as well, too, so …we’ll see.

Ok, back to regularly scheduled Blizzard games posting after this!

Oh, one more thing … I found the book that the game was based on, With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (written in 1884!), on Google Play, so I’m reading it in my browser between phone calls at work. It’s surprisingly good!