Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord — Beta Patch Notes - WS v1.3.0 / BL v1.5.0

Greetings Warriors of Calradia,

Our last content patch focused on the sandbox simulation. It made diplomacy more responsive and encouraged our lords to pursue meaningful wars, create larger armies, go to sea, harass convoys and raid villages. It also included the new seaborne raid, additional ships and equipment as well as many tweaks to gameplay, visuals and performance.

Today’s beta release puts more emphasis on player activities. The segment prior to the patch notes discusses our motivations for some of these changes.

**War Sails

**While seafaring offers new opportunities for merchants and warriors alike, it requires substantial progress to not only acquire a ship, but also hire a crew that can fend for themselves. This is sensible from a balance perspective, but gates much of the naval content. We wanted to improve upon this without deeply changing the early game that many players enjoy.

The most direct solution the beta introduces is - additional player choice. At the beginning of every Sandbox game, you will be able to choose if you want to enter Calradia with a ship to your name or play the regular game start.

However, even if you opt for the latter, the patch includes a number of changes that should make progression both smoother and more flexible. For one, we added the ferry feature so that smaller player parties can reach (and escape) areas of the map that would otherwise be hard or impossible to get to without a ship. Given player feedback, we also increased land and sea travel speeds by 15% so that you will generally be faster to progress (and recover).

Once you do have a vessel of your own, you will find the pirate spawns adjusted to include smaller parties that you can engage earlier into the game. Similarly, part of the reason for why we introduced naval random events as well as the battle sites and wreckage system is to offer players more experiences that don’t require a strong fleet. Having said that, they should increase the variety of naval gameplay regardless of progression and allow players to organically witness more of what is happening in the world.

The mooring feature, in turn, opens up additional options for aspiring captains as their fleet grows. You will be able to store instead of sell ships that you cannot effectively crew yet. You also won’t need to risk your entire fleet in every naval battle. Instead, you can specialize and only bring what fits your current play style - be that trading, raiding or naval combat.

Finally, we added port points to coastal castles. While more locations to embark and disembark should make sea travel more accessible in general, the larger motivation is offering additional opportunities for armies to clash at sea. Given that most army encounters occur around sieges, naval blockades on castles will contribute to that.

While the beta includes other changes such as improved map visuals, better naval party decision making, storyline tweaks and the ability for players to cut boarding ropes in missions, our focus with this patch is on naval content access, progress and variety. Especially the variety and frequency of what you can experience at sea will remain an important topic for War Sails going forward.

**Base Game

**As we explored starting with a ship for War Sails, it quickly became clear that this was also an opportunity for the base game. Not the ship, mind you, but advanced starting options.

These are split into three categories - each with their own goals.

The player start options allow experienced players to access later game content more quickly and begin a game with a particular character role (such as king, vassal or merchant). For new players, this will also serve as an additional form of progression since you need to unlock most of the roles in regular gameplay before you can start with them.

The campaign scenarios, on the other hand, are always available. Their primary purpose is to increase replayability through the introduction of tailored but partially randomized world states. What would happen if the Empire remained united? What if you entered Calradia with only two warring factions remaining? What if you threw the dice on the state of the world? The campaign scenarios allow you to find out.

Modifiers are the final piece of the puzzle. They take aim at specific game mechanics that can deeply affect the experience such as recruit generation or travel speeds. Players who do not enjoy the default settings or just want to try something different will now have alternatives.

As you will be able to combine settings from these categories, the advanced starting options should offer quite a bit of content variety. They also integrate the Fast Mode directly into the game rather than the launcher, which will make it accessible on consoles as well. Please note that all of these are set when starting a Sandbox game and cannot be changed later.

The rest of this patch is less about where you begin and more about what you can see as you are playing.

Battle sites and wreckages are one example of this. Their fundamental goal is to add visibility to battles that take place in the world outside of the player's immediate vision range. Instead of simply happening with players none the wiser, they now leave behind a temporary battle site that you can come across. You can also investigate it for further information and potential rewards. We believe that this will be a good addition to the organic worldbuilding and storytelling of our sandbox.

Visibility or recognizable gameplay impact is also an important aspect for two topics that are frequently raised in the community - traits and relations.

While they already influence AI in kingdom decisions and military actions (siege, raid, battle) among other things, it can be difficult to discern their role given the competition with other factors - and each other. For example, a valorous lord is less discouraged by a garrison’s power but may still not pursue a siege due to positive relations with the settlement owner - as long as there are more attractive, alternative targets.

With that said, there are options to make traits and relations more apparent and impactful to the player’s own activity. The present patch seeks to do this with the introduction of trait effects and blood feuds.

As the name suggests, trait effects tie a number of effects to your current character traits. These were designed to support gameplay that is aligned with each side of a trait’s spectrum. So whether you are merciful or cruel, you will have effects that suit the role you are playing. And while this is more oriented towards the player’s character development, AI lords do have traits and will benefit from them as well.

Blood feuds, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with relations. If you execute a clan member of another clan, they will begin doing the same to your clan until relations recover or blood money is paid. Notably, AI clans can start a blood feud as well and execute one of your clan members, including you, if you have sufficiently negative relations (currently -50). So you may want to check who you are fighting - or at least ensure that your heir hasn’t already been captured.

Finally, we took a look at the (offensive, defensive, balanced) player clan party stances. Much like traits, the active stance influenced the party behavior scores, but did not guarantee specific outcomes. To give players a more reliable way to manage their clan, we decided to shift away from the score influence and towards hard, observable rules for the most common pain points. You will now be able to directly allow or prohibit joining armies, raiding villages, donating troops and having a fleet (for War Sails).

Naturally, the patch also includes changes that go beyond these themes such as additional battle terrains, passive experience gains for lords and companions as well as a substantial rework of reinforcement spawns in battles.

As we enter this beta period, we look forward to further improving these and other aspects with your feedback. We also want to note that this version’s live release will include captain mode formation targeting, spectator mode improvements and a range of balance adjustments for our multiplayer community. Once we have made a bit more progress, we will also share another update for what the future holds.

Hope you enjoy the Beta - we’re looking forward to your feedback!

Here’s how you can play the Beta via Steam right now: Open Steam, right-click Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord → Properties → Game Versions & Betas → Select “beta - Beta v1.5.0”.

Please note that there may be a delay between the download of the base game and the download of War Sails. If you launch the game prior to both of them being updated, you will crash. If you face this issue, please verify your game files.

War Sails Beta v1.3.0

The following changes are specific to the War Sails expansion and are not part of the base game.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Added Mooring to Town Ports

• In neutral or allied towns, you can now moor your ships and configure your fleet composition without selling or sending to clan. You can moor at multiple ports without a ship limit. Your existing moored ports will become inaccessible if the town owner is at war with you, and become accessible again once they are no longer hostile.

• Added a ferry system that enables you to travel between some coastal villages without owning ships

• To use a ferry, you must be in a coastal village (including the hostile ones), not be in an army, have a party size of no more than 50 troops, and carry enough gold to cover the fare. The fare depends on your party size and the hostility of both the departure and destination settlements, with the hostile village ferry charging more. The destination is preset for each coastal village and is visible in the village menu.

• Added the ability to embark and disembark at coastal castles, and extended the siege blockade feature to coastal castles as well.

• Fixed a bug that caused the lost battle simulation of Seaborne Village Raid to be considered as a win if the simulation is started right after losing the Seaborne Village Raid mission battle.

• Fixed a bug that caused position errors of the player's party after setting sail, preventing the party from entering settlements.

Random Events

• Added 39 naval random events. These appear based on your actions at sea. Each event tells a different story and offers choices that can affect your character’s traits, skills, party, items, or gold.

Character Development System

• Changed how you gain the Boatswain skill experience. It is no longer gained when your ships take damage. Instead, you can develop the Boatswain skill by maintaining high party morale while at sea.

• Increased the amount of Boatswain experience gained from repairing ships.

• Added missing naval skills (Mariner, Boatswain, Shipmaster) to faction leader skill templates.

• Reduced most non-governor perks' effects by 50% when used in naval battles (perks that are not in the Mariner, Boatswain, or Shipmaster category and those that adjust numeric values).

• Made Boatswain - Streamlined Operations, Shipwrights Insight, Smooth Operator, and Accuracy Training perks' FirstMate role effects Captain effects.

• Made Boatswain - Shipwrights Insight's primary effect a personal effect, which now only applies when the hero who has the perk uses a ballista on a ship.

• Nord nobles now have beards and facial scars more often to make them appear more rugged.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Mariner - Forceful perk from applying its secondary effect properly.

Campaign Map

• Improved terrain features and visuals of the world map.

• Reduced visible grid lines on the world map.

• Switched a terrain scene near Makeb with a more suitable one.

• Fixed a bug that prevented parts of the world map from applying the correct weather based on the campaign time, leading to campaign map and mission scenes having inconsistent weather.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect pathfinding on the campaign map.

• Fixed a bug that caused battle missions to trigger a scene with a winter setting when started under the storm on the campaign map.

Naval Battles

• Ship attachment ropes can now be hit by the player and destroyed to prevent bridges from being formed.

• Additionally, attachment rope physics have been overhauled and made more realistic.

• Relaxed the skeletal crew restriction for ship placement during the OoB phase. You can now deploy ships that have fewer troops than the skeletal crew number. The UI will alert you that such ships will underperform in battle.

• Improved deployment zone planning for naval battles. Ship spacing is now dynamically adjusted based on deployment width, with a maximum gap of 20 meters that scales down for wider formations in river battles (e.g., 13 meters for 8 dromons). River battles now use a fixed deployment zone depth with 50-meter front and back margins, while sea battles continue to extend the zone toward mission boundaries.

• Fixed a bug that caused ship collisions to have numerous camera shakes or deal damage more than once.

• Fixed a bug that caused retreated ships to be displayed as destroyed in the mission scoreboard.

• Fixed a bug that prevented ships from being displayed in the scoreboard during a custom battle seaborne village raid.

• Fixed a bug that prevented troops from boarding the enemy ship in some scenarios.

• Fixed a bug that allowed players to place troop formations in unintended areas during Seaborne and Village raid missions in OoB.

• Fixed a bug that allowed the naval battle to start even with undermanned ships deployed.

• Fixed a bug that prevented crew members from taking control of the ship when delegating command of the vessel.

Clan and Party

• Improved AI noble party decision-making when encountering pirates at sea. Parties now consider their active task and proximity to friendly or enemy settlements before deciding whether to engage, reducing unnecessary interruptions and helping them stay focused on their current objectives. Parties traveling by sea near enemy settlements or parties performing Offensive Patrol tasks will now no longer engage pirate parties unless those pirates are already engaged with a friendly (own faction, alliance, or trade agreement) party.

• Added smaller pirate parties to increase early game accessibility of naval encounters.

• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to set sail from hostile villages.

• Fixed a bug that caused naval patrols to have trouble navigating curved rivers.

• Fixed a bug that caused nobles to be embarking to their ships for 30+ hours, during which they couldn't be interacted with.

• Fixed a bug that caused parties without a ship to try defending a raided village from the water.

Ships & Upgrades

• Improved the descriptions of ship upgrades.

• Added a new animation pose to the captain point of the Ghurab ship.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Reinforced Battlements with Improved Rudder" ship upgrade from appearing visually.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the top two parts of cloth on the Square Sails (level 3) from being affected by wind physics.

• Fixed a bug that prevented colors from showing on ship sails and rooftops.

• Fixed a bug that caused different LODs to change ship roof color.

UI

• Changed the mariner icon visibility check when upgrading troops. It no longer looks at whether the current mariner is a mariner, but whether the upgraded version of the troop is a mariner.

• Improved the ordering of scoreboard ships to show the player's ships first, in their formation orders (1->8).

• Updated draft type in the Fleet Menu to include naval raid ability.

• Updated some ship thumbnails.

• Removed the + ship buttons from custom battle Seaborne Village Raids beyond the 3 ships.

• Fixed a bug that allowed you to open other screens while the Manage Fleet screen was open.

Quests & Issues

• Made a pass over the early and mid War Sails storyline to reduce difficulty in certain missions:

• Adjusted enemy weapons in the alley fight and the ship escape to deal less damage.

• Increased the duration of Gunnar's invulnerability after he is rescued following the in-mission cinematic of the alley fight.

• Increased the allied ship's troop count to 14 in Escort the Vlandian Merchants.

• Increased the fireship's health in Break Out of Omor Estuary so that it is much harder to sink before reaching the target ship.

• Increased the second ship's maximum health and maximum fire health in Break Out of Omor Estuary.

• Added an Alt-key highlight to the throwable axe barrels on the escape ship in Free the Sea Hounds' Captives, making them easier to find during the escape phase.

• Updated the equipment and skills of the Vlandian Merchant, Sea Hound Recruit, and Sea Hound Thug troops.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the first enemy ship from firing its ballista in Break Out of Omor Estuary.

• Added postures and animations to characters in the naval storyline dialogues.

• Fixed a bug that caused enemy troops to spawn inside water during the Army of Poachers quest in some villages.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from correctly starting at the ship helm when choosing to control the captured ship during the Defeat the Sea Hounds mission.

Audio

• Fixed a bug that caused Sturgian Victory music to be played instead of Nord when winning an encounter.

• Fixed a bug that caused the Battle music to disappear during the finale of the Naval Storyline missions.

• Fixed a bug that caused all naval battles to end with the Battanian Victory music. They now end with your faction's Victory music or the music of the troops' dominant culture.

Animations

• Fixed a bug that caused banner animation issues during the Seaborne Village Raid on the world map.

Other

• Made 14 armour pieces appear in Nord town shops instead of Sturgia.

• Troop adjustments:

• Updated Skolderbrotva troops and their leaders with Nord culture items.

• Updated Sea Raider troops' equipment with Nord culture items.

• Fixed a bug that allowed some Nord female dresses to be equipped by male characters.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when entering a Scourge of the Seas quest due to other unrelated quests. They're now cancelled.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when the