"Must-have" mod players: Your thoughts on vanilla playthroughs?

[Jamers]

To those very familiar with using the big "must-have" mods on your playthroughs (Diplomacy, Better Garrisons, etc.), how would you feel about playing a vanilla campaign?

I'm in a bit of a fix here.

Bought the game a handful of days ago (of course afterward it immediately went on sale for 40% off before I even started playing) and had been wrangling a bit trying to get a lean mod loadout going -- just the big ones that add substantial features and quality of life (e.g. RTS Camera) to the game.

I had a good bit of trouble getting things going (I'm not inexperienced; been modding since Morrowind), and then finally had a lean loadout that I liked and BUTRLauncher seemed to solve my launch and mod order problems.

Then just before I was able to start my first playthrough, the new patch dropped yesterday and broke everything.

I understand that these things happen and that this is the nature of modding games, but I just want to play the game already. What I've done is just started a vanilla campaign (only just finished the tutorial) with the intention of switching over and starting a new modded campaign when the mods update to a compatible state so that I can get some understanding of things (I played a fair bit of Warband but never engaged in some of its systems and never got close to world conquest in it), but of course inevitably this will just happen again down the line.

The thing is, I don't have much time to game these days, and I know that Mount & Blade games are wildly dense and time-consuming affairs, especially without some of the conveniences that mods can provide. I don't think I'll get very far trying to split my limited gaming hours between two playthroughs.

**TL;DR** All of this rambling to say: What are your thoughts on the vanilla game? Has playing with mods made you "see the light" and brought features that you couldn't see yourself playing without (this is how I feel about Requiem for Skyrim -- I have zero interest in vanilla playthroughs), or is the vanilla game robust enough and enough of an improvement over Warband that you'd find it very enjoyable? I can already see that the jank is real, but the fact that the vanilla game will never be "down for maintenance" while mod authors catch up is very appealing.

Thanks for any input here!

[devon_gareau]

i have many many many hours on bannerlord, honestly like 85 percent was vanilla because i coyld not for the life of me get it to play except by running the native.exe file. and after that many vanilla hours i only came back because i did indeed get it to work on regular play, but also because i really really wanted the diplomacy mod. that one was my only real goal. every other mod is nice and helps in some way but the diplomacy mod is what brought me back to the game.

[Action Man]

Lock your game version to the version you were playing with mods. I was on 1.0.3 for a long time. I only recently updated to 1.2.7. Got pretty much my same mod setup working on patch day too. Some don't work, but that's how it goes sometimes.

[Sabaithal]

Separatism - Chaos start. Because its actually VERY fun to play the game with this, its utter chaos and I love it.

Also adjustable bandit spawns, because their lairs are not challenging enough in my opinion.

[Vega]

Vanilla? Can't do it, won't do it. Hours spent on a vanilla playthrough for me could be better spent with a modded playthrough. Ever since I came across Wabbajack, and modded Skyrim a few years ago, any game I play that has mods must be played with mods. I initially played this without mods, but that was literally at launch. Been modding the game for over a year, too.

Too many good mods. Too many mods that should be in the game. I have a WIP list in Mod Organizer 2 at this moment that I am building for v.1.2.7, which was previously full of v1.1.6 mods. I intentionally took a break weeks ago because of the imminent update. Just gotta wait a bit for mods to update. Not exactly my main game so it's not a big deal at all.

If you have limited time, just play it vanilla.

[Jamers]

Originally posted by Vega:

Vanilla? Can't do it, won't do it. Hours spent on a vanilla playthrough for me could be better spent with a modded playthrough. Ever since I came across Wabbajack, and modded Skyrim a few years ago, any game I play that has mods must be played with mods. I initially played this without mods, but that was literally at launch. Been modding the game for over a year, too.

Too many good mods. Too many mods that should be in the game. I have a WIP list in Mod Organizer 2 at this moment that I am building for v.1.2.7, which was previously full of v1.1.6 mods. I intentionally took a break weeks ago because of the imminent update. Just gotta wait a bit for mods to update. Not exactly my main game so it's not a big deal at all.

If you have limited time, just play it vanilla.

Hey, thanks for this!

Wabbajack is a life saver -- I absolutely love it too. Have you managed to find a Wabbajack-compatible mod list for Bannerlord?

I put together a Mod Organizer 2 list, but I can't find info on how to add the BLSE Launcher as an executable to be launched via Mod Organizer (if you know how to do this, I'd love to hear about it!).

I'd prefer to use Mod Organizer but that's what's holding me back. At the moment I'm manually putting things in the Modules folder and then running BLSELauncherEx.exe, which is stable enough to take me to the game's main menu if I have most of my mods unticked.

I've reverted to version 1.1.6 and am trying to only use mods that seem to be compatible with that version, but I'm still encountering crashes if I have everything that I want to use ticked on the launcher menu.

I'd love to see your 1.1.6 mod list if it was a stable one! Mainly I'd like to use feature-rich and quality of life mods like Diplomacy and Improved Garrisons, but if I can include things like No Time Limit and RTS Camera, all the better.

Thanks!

[TREAD]

change your setting in steam so the game doesn't update automatically.

Then download a different version on steam. I am currently playing 1.1.5 so all my mods work. The changes in 1.2.7 don't really add much that mods didn't already do anyway.