Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord — Dev Update & Beta WS v1.2.0 / BL v1.4.0 release notes

Greetings Warriors of Calradia,

The past year has been an exciting journey, marked by the release of War Sails, our expansion for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. Alongside it came substantial additions to the base game, such as alliances, trade agreements, stealth gameplay, deserters & patrols, random events, improved visuals, and more.

You have since given us a lot of feedback on both — what's working and what isn't. This update is aimed at a number of these topics. In addition to the regular patch notes, you will find a segment that discusses our current priorities, the goals of this patch, as well as some insight into what’s yet to come.

War Sails

Our immediate focus remains on the War Sails expansion. While many important issues were addressed by the initial patches, we still want to close gaps in the experience so that you can better enjoy naval combat and the strategic and role-playing opportunities of seafaring.

Lord Sea Presence, Naval Patrols & Seaborne Village Raids

The availability and variety of encounters at sea are key aspects in this regard. While pirates, convoys, and fishers are already plentiful, it is currently too difficult to consistently locate the fleets of nobles, who tend to offer larger, more challenging naval engagements.

Tweaks such as increasing the map viewing distance can help - but don’t address the broader issue. Simply put, our lords are not setting sail frequently enough, and when they do, it is often short-lived.

To improve upon this, today’s release includes AI score adjustments that increase the likelihood of longer nautical journeys and, more notably, a new offensive naval patrol behavior that lays the groundwork for lords to pursue some of their strategic goals entirely at sea.

For now, this means that they patrol enemy town and village ports to intercept fishers, convoys, and fleets. Based on initial observations, the change doesn’t just increase the naval presence of lords but also shifts their activity from primarily hunting pirates near their own coastline toward a more meaningful interaction with other factions.

During the beta period, we will expand on this by allowing naval parties to interact with coastal and river villages without disembarking. Lords will thus be able to resupply in more locations while avoiding pathfinding costs that may otherwise prevent them from continuing their journey at sea.

The bigger addition coming during the beta, however, are seaborne village raids. They will not only add to the lord sea presence and strategic naval activity but also offer an entirely new mission experience. Unlike land raids, attackers will approach the coast and disembark their ships as defenders scramble to mount a defense. To support this, we have created a range of new scenes for coastal villages. We intend to further expand this pool after the feature's release as well. On the campaign side, seaborne raids allow attackers to more easily evade responding lords and introduce a new consideration to fleet management, as they can only be conducted with shallow draft ships. Consequently, large ships with holds are not the answer to everything.

Content Variety, Gameplay Feel & Future Content Patches

Increasing the overall variety of content is another important goal for us. While the current update is focused on the addition of patrols and seaborne raids, new vessels, and greater item variety, we will still pursue further naval feature integration (such as the naval clan roles in this release) and feature additions to expand the range of possible naval gameplay in future content patches.

Alongside this, we will continue to improve the existing features and content of War Sails. This concerns broad topics such as the visuals of the new world map and faction balance, as well as many individual tweaks aimed at the fun factor of naval gameplay.

For missions, this currently entails creating a tighter, more consistent experience by resolving issues that unnecessarily prolong the engagement. You will already find many related changes in this release, and we look forward to further improving this aspect with your feedback.

On the campaign side, we are primarily concerned with improvements that enable naval gameplay earlier into the game, raise the benefits of seafaring, and ease the progression and recovery loop.

Base Game

Even with the work on War Sails ongoing, the base game is not standing still.

While the release of alliances and trade agreements significantly expanded the game’s diplomacy and addressed long-standing community requests, we are not quite done with them. Right now, these agreements don't reflect enough of what's happening in the world around them. This patch is looking to change that — making them responsive to more factors you can influence, better integrated with related mechanics, and shifting alliances away from a default everyone opts into toward something that responds to actual threats.

War, diplomacy’s well-known extension, is also under scrutiny. Both micro wars and prolonged inactive wars called for further action to ensure that conflicts impact the world in sensible, meaningful ways. To that end, we have taken several steps to ensure that kingdoms not only create sizable armies without overly depleting their pool of free parties but also apply them effectively.

As with the expansion, we are pursuing a range of individual tweaks to benefit our existing base game features. The stealth mission changes, for one, seek to make gameplay more challenging and responsive while rewarding players who remain undetected. Sending troops to clear a hideout, in turn, now takes into account related skills, which makes rogue-ish character development more valuable. The improvements to atmospheres, performance, and AI, on the other hand, serve the mission experience as a whole.

This kind of effort will continue in future versions as well. For instance, we want at least some random event effects to scale so that the mechanic remains relevant for longer into the game. And as trait development becomes firmly established, we will explore trait effects that are more meaningful and visible to players. Another aspect we are reviewing is party clan management, as we believe it still has significant potential to improve the quality of life for both Bannerlord and War Sails.

Naturally, we are also pursuing a number of ideas for new base game features, but we want to spend a bit more time before teasing them to you. Having said that, we do want to respond to multiplayer inquiries and reaffirm our commitment to the previously discussed spectator mode and captain mode formation targeting, as well as general multiplayer balance.

Thank you for your patience and continued support. Hope you enjoy the Beta - we’re looking forward to your feedback!

Below are the major highlights from this Beta patch (with Naval Village Raids coming to the Beta branch soon), and feel free to read the full notes for all the details.

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 v1.4.0”.

_Have fun, and looking forward to your feedback - please share it with us on the official forums.

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 v1.2.0

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

Clan and Party

Changes

Added a new AI party behavior for offensive naval patrols that seek to disrupt enemy forces and economy during war.
These target town and village "port" locations to harass Lord Parties, Convoys, and Fishing Ships.
This should contribute to lord sea presence, but, more importantly, to a greater number of naval engagements for lord parties.
Increased AI nobles’ willingness to travel by sea.
AI lords were overestimating how much damage they would take at sea. We adjusted that to make their calculations more reasonable.
This should make longer naval travel more acceptable to nobles.
Added New Naval Party Roles
Players can now assign First Mate (Boatswain skill) and Navigator (Shipmaster skill) roles.
Updated some perks to have First Mate and Navigator role-specific effects.
Added 3 new Nord wanderer types: "the Easterling", "the Boatswain", and "the Sea-Raider".
Mariner Skill Changes
Added Mariner skill to all Mariner troops.
Reworked how the Mariner skill affects combat performance during naval engagements.
In Campaign/Sandbox mode and naval battles, heroes now use their Mariner skill to reduce combat penalties when fighting on ships. A Mariner skill of 200 fully cancels these penalties, while heroes with 0 Mariner skill receive the full penalties.
Regular troops can only cancel these penalties if they have the “mariner” tag. Troops without this tag receive the full penalties during naval combat.
Adjusted how Mariner skill behaves in Custom Naval Battles.
All troops (including heroes) will cancel all Mariner penalties if their default Mariner skill is greater than 40.
Troops with a value below 40 receive the full penalties.
Adjusted how swimming duration scales with the Mariner skill.
Maximum Mariner skill now grants up to +20 seconds of additional swimming time, allowing experienced mariner troops to survive longer if they fall into the sea.
Fixed several agent stat calculation differences between Campaign/Sandbox and Custom Naval Battles. Both modes now use consistent calculations, with the exception of personal and captain perks, which are only applied in Campaign/Sandbox mode.
Improved AI party behavior by enabling pirate parties to surrender when their relative strength is significantly lower than the opposing force.
Increased experience gain for non-hero troops in naval encounters by 50%. This change applies to both missions and auto-resolution. It should help offset higher troop losses at sea.
Added a 40% View Distance penalty when the player party is inside a storm.
Increased the party View Distance at sea by 30%.
Reduced party wages while at sea.
Reduced food consumption while at sea.
Increased the river party naval speed by 50%.
Decreased the roaming range of fisher parties.
Adjusted the armor pieces used by Sea Hound troops so they are consistent with their tier.

Fixes

Fixed a bug that allowed parties to travel through the obstacles on the campaign map.
Fixed a bug that prevented players from entering the raft state when released from captivity at sea.
Fixed a bug that caused some naval parties to miscalculate enemy party strength and thus make ill-informed decisions whether to engage or flee.
Fixed a bug that caused the player’s ships to be left behind after dying at sea and choosing an heir, resulting in a single ship stranded at a settlement instead of being transferred to the new party.
Fixed a bug that prevented wanderers of Nord culture from spawning.

Naval Battles

Changes

Added a system to handle campaign naval battles that do not fully exhaust at least one of the sides. The previous system allowed the player or AI to defeat the enemy as a whole, even if they had more remaining ships & troops that did not fight in the initial battle. Both sides now disengage from the encounter and consider their next move.
Added the ability to delegate command of your ship.
Using the "Delegate command" order, the crew takes control of the ship while the player freely moves and acts on deck.
If the order is given while the player controls the ship, the control is automatically relieved. The order ends automatically if the player manually takes ship control, while disabling the order will stop the ship's movement.
Improved mission victory logic for naval battles.
Previously, all troops had to be down or in the water for a side to be defeated. A side is now considered defeated only when all of its ships are out of action (sunk, burnt, or critically undermanned). This doesn't apply to actively contested ship islands.
The mission will not conclude while a player-controlled agent is alive and not until at least 20 seconds have passed since the last player-controlled agent’s death.
Adjusted the way the spawning distance between teams is calculated in missions.
The distance between teams in naval battles is now determined by ship count rather than total crew capacity. This change should result in shorter distances for engagements between a few ships and greater distances for larger fleets.
Increased ship figurehead loot drop chances from defeated enemy nobles.
Defeating a Kingdom Leader: Increased from 50% to 60%.
Defeating a Clan Leader: Increased from 25% to 50%.
Defeating a Clan Member: Increased from 10% to 40%.
Added a boarding indicator to show which enemy ship is currently being boarded.
Added the ability to cancel an active boarding order by holding the boarding key on the targeted ship.
Added separating forces that apply when ships become tangled, helping them break apart.
Improved boarding bridge connections so that they are harder to break.
Made troop pathfinding improvements for moving on ships.
Ships that were given the targeted Engage order on an enemy ship remained inactive after clearing it and any other attached enemy ships. Now, they will automatically detach and find new enemies to attack.
Adjusted the speed threshold for oar-assisted turning to be more tolerant. Ships turn faster when using oars on both sides.
Reduced the fire damage of a missile that passes through a sail before hitting a target.
Adjusted ship ballista rotation and projectile type behavior so different ballista types feel more distinct.
Improved ballista direct control mode visibility by enabling movement of the ballista during reload.
Adjusted the ship ballista camera behavior so it automatically switches to a different camera view when the ballista is unmanned, making it clearer when the ballista is not being used by a troop.
Ranged accuracy of troops now decreases with the ships' movement.
Improved the efficiency of getting back onto the ship by enabling multiple troops to use climbing nets simultaneously.
Increased auto resolution time for naval encounters.
Increased mariner troop strength in naval battle simulations by 20%.

Fixes

Fixed a bug that prevented AI ships with the Engage order from connecting with and assisting allied ships during naval battles. Ships given the Engage order will now correctly update their boarding targets, throw hooks, and board enemy ships as intended, including when multiple allied ships are engaging the same target.
Fixed a bug that allowed the minimum troop count in Naval Custom Battle to go below the operable troop count, resulting in immediate battle end.
Fixed a bug that caused figurehead drop chances to be lower than intended.
Fixed a bug that caused the "Use oars at half power" command to trigger an incorrect number of oarsmen and improper ship steering behavior.
Fixed a bug that prevented troops from being assigned to oars during initial battle deployment.
Fixed a bug that caused collision issues inside Roundship and Dromon, causing units to get stuck.
Fixed a bug that caused ship reinforcements to continue spawning while a ship is burning.
Fixed a bug that caused burning sails to still apply wind forces.
Fixed a bug that caused the default player character camera to be reset to third person when relinquishing control of the ship.
Fixed a bug that caused troops to continue using ship interactables while they are in the water.
Fixed a bug that caused troops to collide with boarding bridges when swimming underneath.
Fixed a bug that caused troops to appear outside of a ship in Order of Battle, when switching ship selection.

War Sails Storyline

Changes

Added a tooltip for the reasons the dialogue option to set sail with Purig is disabled during the naval storyline.
Improved naval storyline progression clarity when Ostican is hostile to the player. Gunnar can now be accessed via town and port menus during the naval storyline, even if the player is at war with Ostican’s owner, ensuring the storyline can still be progressed without entering the settlement.
Improved proximity detection for notifications and music cues during the “Defeat the Sea Hounds” naval storyline mission, ensuring banner messages and audio events trigger reliably as ships move into range.
Increased food and gold given in naval storyline quests, to ensure reaching quest objectives with enough provisions.
Adjusted the main storyline Conspiracy quest settlement target selection to exclude island settlements that could cause navigation issues.
Changed Gunnar's home village to Lagshofn instead of Bjorenbyr.
Removed Sea Hounds' spears from the Naval Storyline Act 3 Quest 5 Escape phase.

Fixes

Fixed a bug that prevented the "Free the sea hounds' captives" from restarting after retreating from the mission.
Fixed a bug that allowed player inputs during the "Purig's ship is here" cutscene in "Free the sea hounds' captives" quest.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Sea Hounds from triggering an encounter in the “Defeat the Sea Hounds” quest if the player did not move their own ship.
Fixed a bug that caused repeating dialogues at the end of "Speak to the Sailors in Omor" and "Hunt Down Emira al Fahda" quests.
Fixed a bug that prevented horses from jumping during the "Speak to Sailors in Omor" quest.
Fixed a bug that caused rescued crew members to try using oars that were already in use during the naval storyline captivity mission, leading to broken rowing behavior when switching rowing power.
Fixed a bug that caused party visibility and settlement information around Ostican to not update correctly after the player was teleported there during the naval questline.
Fixed a bug that caused repeating dialogue in the conversation with Purig in the naval storyline quests.
Fixed a bug that allowed Nord settlements to be selected as a main storyline conspiracy quest target settlement.
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