Warband vs Bannerlord 2?

[Wolfsun]

Years and Years ago I purchased Warband with intent to learn and play it due to how well it had been received and accepted by the community. However and to be honest totally forgot i had it.

Total play time 18 minutes and that was the result of my habitual practice of setting up graphics and gameplay preferences almost immediately after dl'ng it.

Zero experience - it happens.

So now I am reading the reviews of Bannerlord 2, many of which mention Warband and that extol it's quality as being superior to that of Bannerlord. Some love Bannerlord and some not so much. That doesn't seem to be the case with Warband - which it seems - most love.

My question is - based on all that - should I play Warband, learn it and then get some good mods for it after I go thru a play thru?. Skip Warband and get Bannerlord, Or just jump headfirst into Bannerlord right now?

What say you? All opinions appreciated and considered.

Thanks

[Morgan]

Might as well roll with warband since you already have it.

You can play around with the default campaign while learning the mechanics or just dive right into some of the amazing mods created by the game's community.

[Abe Tweakin']

Im gonna play some Warband (2.6 hours in and I'm pretty much hooked) and then one day try and snag Bannerlord if it ever goes on a 40-50% sale.

[༺𝓽𝓸𝓶𝓶𝔂༻]

Get wse2 and it will make your experience on warband even better. Better fps, smoother gameplay, slightly better graphics and less fps drops when playing big mods

[stun]

Biggest difference is that wars/sieges are incredibly overengineered and weird and lame in bannerlord and that character progression/the skill system is much worse. The latter you can fix with mods, the former you can't really but in comparison warband is a very simple and straightforward sandbox.
It's really a case of do you prefer AAAtrash or retrotrash.

I consider warband broadly superior on every front, in some cases narrowly, and in many important ones (combat, progression, unit stats, warfare) far superior. The expanded management system of bannerlord is so sidelined as to basically not be there and it's equivalent to what mods like diplomacy give you anyway.

Modding is very different. The best reason to play bannerlord imo is if you decide you like some of it's mods. Warband uses a module system so it's more like each mod is a playthrough unto itself rather than a drag and drop system of minor changes, though many of the utility mods get rolled with virtually every major module.

[kharille]

Warband was more addictive and fun for me. I've made 3 attempts to get into Bannerlord but it don't hook me like Warband.

[Wolfsun]

Thanks, Guys. Sounds like everything y'all have said pretty much aligns with the Bannerlord reviews. Off to do some thinkin'now.

[VTubers are cringe]

Bannerlord is on Game Pass if you want to try it, but I personally prefer Warband as Bannerlord is barely an upgrade.

[OldManHobbs]

I'm late purchasing Warband, so I'm in a very similar situation as the original post, and feel so informed with all the comments. Thank you, everyone. It seems staying with Warband, at least for now, is better than "upgrading" to Bannerlord.

[Machiavelli]

There's nothing wrong with playing both if you can. There's some cool mods in Bannerlord starting to prop up. And of course, you can have bigger troop counts if you got a good pc. Bannerlord sieges way better. No body can convince me going up one ladder is better than Bannerlords multi options.

[Morgan]

Originally posted by Sirrah_Fellington:

Bannerlord sieges way better. No body can convince me going up one ladder is better than Bannerlords multi options.

LOL, yes warband SP siege was always a bit goofy. There are plenty of things Warband does better than Bannerlord, but siege is a stretch for sure.

[ᵉʳᵍᵒ]

Bannerlord was fun at launch but is just sweaty tryhard trash now, you're better off with Warband

[VTubers are cringe]

My Bannerlord experience consisted of curb stomping bandits and dominating tournaments (which give pretty good rewards).

[fastforward]

i would say warband all the way. better companions, better control of troops in battles, better fps, no sliders, trading feels so much better in warband, way better character development system, better dialogues, game world feels way more alive,
all those points are from comparing non modded game, if adding in the mods warband plays in a completely different league.
bannerlord has great concepts but those were never finished and some implemented very poorly.
the sieges in bannerlord for example , those seem like an improvement, but only if looked on the surface of it. a deeper inspection exposes bannerlord sieges as the same scripted chokepoint fights that warband had with fancier graphics. you cant construct fortifications inside the scenes, cant chop trees, cant set fires to trees, cant dig trenches, cant tunnel under walls, and the overland map siege mechanic is mobile game tier.
same goes for battles, there is no improvement in bannerlord, just features removed. they literaly removed the command to select nearby troops or invert selection. why did they do this?
i wanted to chop heads with a band of guys again and i couldnt bring myself to even start bannerlord, i started up warband and i am having a blast... i even didnt put any mods on because i wanted to refresh my memory on the vanilla experience. warband is the superior game.