The Campaign Blazes On
We return to our campaign with some new swagger in our step. We are the Bannerlord! We (off camera) crushed another tournament! We have a war to fight!
But first, it's time to select a new perk.
We need to do some grinding to qualify for the next storyline quests now that we've assembled the Dragon Banner. Clan Tier relies on our Renown, so it's going to be important to win battles, win tournaments, and clear out bandit hideouts to really grind that up. We can also snag some easy Renown with completing quests if I ever remember to look at them and take them.
As for being an Independent Clan - that's easy enough to do. We just need to drop our Mercenary contract and then either not join a kingdom or leave that kingdom when we're ready. Owning a settlement is a bit harder, but not impossible. We talk a bit about how to achieve that in a relatively simple manner when we have the required manpower and clan size. It's a problem for Future Us.
An example of how we'll complete this though, is to take out an independent/rebelling city, such as Tyal.
By attacking this, it ensures that only this rebel force is actually upset at us - so we don't have to worry about getting smashed by something like the Northern Empire, which can throw a ton of military force at us.
Another option would be to wait for one of these existing nations to be on the rickety edge of defeat, and snipe a castle real quick before they go down. It's a bit more dicey, but would also be an option.
We get a marriage offer today as well for our younger sister, Alda. Lacalion Varros seeks her hand, and, despite the numerous red traits he has, we allow it. Gonna be real honest here, I didn't read his little bio blurb until I came to post this screenshot. I feel a little bad in retrospect, having married my younger sister off to a sadist. On the plus side, they're a pretty strong clan. She could do worse than this - it's a step up socially for her. Still though...
To Do List: capture and execute Lacalion later
IT'S A CELEBRATION BISHES!!
This is the first marriage we've seen in this run so far, and it's a fun little cinematic.
With love in the air, we also profess ourselves as Ira's most ardent admirer, seeking to win her over as she'd make for a fantastic wife.
And we are soundly rejected. We need to rise considerably in the world before she'd consider such a thing. Well fine then. I guess we'll just do that then.
Dejected, we head off to join the army and besiege Erzenur Castle, but upon arrival we spot the absolute madhouse that's about to be unleashed.
Instead of throwing our troops into a blender, we opt to leave the army and let those poor chaps figure out the hard way that they've vastly overestimated their abilities.
They get smashed and we chuckle to ourselves as we so wisely avoided that terrible scenario.
Turns out however, that was more Luck than Learning, as we join another siege minutes later and are attacked by an enemy as we build our siege camp.
The balance of power is basically an even split, but... as soon as we get in, I realize what's going to happen to us. The wall of cavalry approaching is not a good sign for how this battle's going to go.
As usual, once we figure out that we're going to get stomped my plan simply becomes 'take as many of them as I can with me' - which is what I do.
Poor horse becomes an absolute pin-cushion in the process. Note that health bar though for him - 1/3 of the way and he's just studded with arrows. That's a War Horse for ya!
We get overconfident a few seconds later and take a glaive to the side, ending our run. It was a pretty good run though. 24 kills by us alone, which translates to a ton of skill exp. Worth the time in-battle for that alone, even if we do have to rebuild another army. God, I should start tallying the number of times I've had to do that.
Comically, the very city we attempted to siege becomes my prison for a few days. I get to watch some other folks battle outside the gates, but no avenging force comes to free me. It's down to a bribe in the end that finally gains me my freedom.
And so, we begin anew, grabbing any recruits we can and tossing ourselves at bandits with reckless abandon. In so doing, we spot this lovely little cluster of nope:
1,200 units sieging Onira. That city's going to fall, no doubt about it. Our poor Souther Empire is not doing well. This war is going about as badly as one could imagine it going.
Or, so I thought.
Then this happens:
Suddenly, we're not just at war with the hordes to the east. We're also at war with the Northern Empire. And the Western Empire. We're being squished by three forces that are all individually hard to deal with. Together like this? Yikes.
It's at this point that we make a decision. We've bled enough for the Southern Empire. We've sacrificed again and again in their wars, doing the best we can and getting wrecked for it over and over and over again.
Enough is enough.
Our time with the Southern Empire was swell, but the swelling's gone down.
We are again a free agent of chaos. Join me again next time as we pick a new Kingdom to court! Until next time friends, happy gaming!
Check out the video! The link is below.
