Mount+and+Blade-With+Fire+and+Sword

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**Description**
//Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword// is the third installment in the //Mount and Blade// series of high medieval combat and exploration games. Built on the original game’s engine instead of the updated engine of //Warband//, much to the complaint of series fans, //With Fire and Sword// shifts away from the fictional setting of the first two games and places the player in 17th century Eastern Europe to relive the setting and general plot of Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz’s historical novel //With Fire and Sword//. This installment also strays from the previous games by introducing gunpowder weapons of the era to the gameplay, which has been criticized by players as unfitting to the series.

The game is primarily split between over-world navigation and third-person historically-based combat with interspersed dialogue and barter menus. The over-world side of the game is played from a top-down perspective, but adjustable to a third-person perspective, and involves intercepting or avoiding infantry or cavalry figures with the player’s own figure, representing the various armies on the field. When the player’s figure encounters another figure or one of the town or city figures, the player is presented with a menu to either select interaction options with the encountered army or exploration options for the community, which open dialogue and bartering menus. When the player is faced with a hostile army and no means to negotiate or escape, the game is transferred to the third-person perspective upon a battlefield. The character then navigates his or her avatar, engaging in ranged combat with bows or firearms, or melee combat with various weapons ranging from bludgeons to cavalry lances. One of the key selling points of this series is the mounted combat, which allows the player’s avatar to mount a horse and fight upon horseback, which adds speed bonuses to melee attacks, particularly lance with lances.

Beyond the combat and navigation, //With Fire and Sword// allows negotiations with historical factions, such as the Kingdom of Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, recruiting of unique hero-characters, and bartering of weapons, armor, horses, and trade goods. Additionally, the building of a war party can expand to the construction of whole armies, and negotiation with factions can extend as far as making a claim on the crown, providing long term goals as well as short term objectives.

**What was Learned?**
In starting a new game, I was prompted to create an avatar to represent me in the game. As part of the creation, I had to learn the various attributes and their influences (strength, agility, intelligence, and charisma), personal skills (increases to character abilities such as greater hit-points and more powerful melee strikes), party skills (increases to party abilities such as a larger inventory and increases in spoils), leader skills (increases to leader abilities such as greater party size) and weapon proficiencies (one-handed, two-handed, polearms, archery, firearms, and thrown). To make appropriate selections, I had to read pop-up tool-tips for each attribute, skill, and proficiency, and think about the kind of character I wised to play. I eventually chose to keep my character balanced in attributes, focused on leadership, training, and looting in skills, and focused on polearms in proficiencies, hoping for the chance to play a winged hussar.

The game then started by introducing me to the basic controls (WASD for movement, mouse for aim and weapons, spacebar for jumping, F for interacting) and the combat mechanics (the left mouse button is used for attacks while the right is used for defensive parries; attacks are directed via the mouse toward the right or left, as a thrust, or as a helm-splitter). I was also introduced to the use of 17th century firearms through the combat mechanics (hold the left mouse button to aim, release to fire, click again to reload) and the use of a horse (approach the horse until a tool-tip identifies it and the word “mount” appears; press F to mount; use WASD for directional and speed controls).

After the brief mechanics introduction, I learned about the setting through a conversation with an NPC named Jaques de Clermont, who claimed to be turned out of France after D’Artagnan of the Musketeers labeled him an enemy of the crown. Jaques then briefed me on my location (Eastern Europe), the state of affairs (growing strife between Poland-Lithuania and the Cossaks, which is attracting the military attentions of Russia, Sweden, and the Crimean Kahn), and how to get started as an adventurer (visit the nearby village for trade, recruitment, and quests, and work my way up in experience, riches, and army size until I feel confident to court the interests of one of the factions, maybe even becoming a nobleman or leading a rebellion).

From there, the game shifted perspective to the over-world, which was packed with Eastern European names of towns, only a few of which were at all familiar, and a tool-tip explaining the controls for the over-world (WASD to scroll across the map; mouse wheel to adjust zoom; mouse to move cursor and left mouse button to select travel destination). Though I was not required to learn my local geography, I did find it useful to commit to memory the location Jaques encouraged me to visit: Zamoshye.

Also on the over-world, I found a menu of buttons across the bottom of my screen. No tutorial was given on their uses, but each was labeled and I clicked them anyway. One brought up the option to set up camp, which allowed time in the game to pass without moving my army. Another brought up a report of my army’s condition, though with only me in the army this button was essentially useless for the time. The same was true of the party button, which allowed me to review my units. However, the inventory button allowed me to modify my equipment and the character button allowed me to check my various attributes, skills, proficiencies, and other statistics. Additionally, the quest button provided a record of not only my quests, but of each location, each major character, each faction, and the relations between all. This menu essentially acts as the in-game encyclopedia, which sparked some tangential learning on my part as I read into each faction’s leaders and major strongholds.

After expanding my familiarity with Eastern European politics, I entered the village of Zamoshye, following Jaques suggestions, and collected some quests from the village elder as Jaques said I could. In the process, I learned that I could expand my army by recruiting villagers, though only when the village had men to spare, and that I could choose to raid a village, though I chose not to. I then embarked on one of the elder’s quests, learning quite soon that touching other army pieces on the map initiated combat with the others, which began the third-person combat aspect. After a run in with some bandits, in which I learned through frequent practice how to time my sword-swings while mounted and that the Tab key exited the battlefield, I chose to go to the nearby city of Smolensk.

At Smolensk, I learned that the larger city icons provide many more options for exploration and interaction than the smaller village icons. Wishing to make some cash, I chose to visit the marketplace, which was divided into weapons, armor, horse, and goods merchants, and discovered that my spoils of war were worth mere pennies in comparison to the majority of the wares available. Again, tangential learning took hold and I learned from the pop-up tool-tips the attributes of the various weapons, including the ability of lances to pierce through blocks. Impressed with this attribute, I sold all of my spoils to purchase the cheapest lance, equipped it through the barter screen, and left the city to hunt down a victim.

After finding a suitably weak band of thieves, I attacked with reckless abandon, but discovered that my horse was not fast enough to properly use my lance. This discovery was not easily made either. After a couple of fruitless charges, I realized that my lance was doing no damage, though I did learn that my horse could deliver impact damage when I accidentally ran down an opponent and the running game log reported a handful of damage points. I then paused the game and checked the controls menu, which offered no help. Playing through Steam, I opened the Steam menu and its web browser to search Google for the problem. The first result connected me to the developer’s forums in which I found a thread asking the same question I found myself asking: how do I couch my lance? Through a handful of sentences, I learned that a horse needs to be fast enough to deliver a charge, which automatically couches the lance, but that an alternate-attack key may also need to be pressed to toggle between attack-types. After a couple more fruitless passes, I quit my campaign game and started a custom battle, selecting a hussar as my character. Through experimentation, I learned that my hussar’s horse could deliver a charge and spent almost a half-hour delivering cavalry charges until a musket to the chest ended my fun and my learning.

**How was it Taught (Learning Principles)?**
Beginning with the character creation screen, teaching was delivered through a single, directive tool-tip, commanding me to create my character by hovering over abilities to see their impacts and clicking on items to spend attribute, skill, and proficiency points. This teaching was not very directed, but it did support active and critical learning as experimentation with character building was within a psychosocial moratorium, though one in which consequences were abstracted as number values with little context. However, this does fit within the Identity Principle since it was the virtual identity creation phase and encouraged some creation of the projective identity by allowing the player to focus upon certain skills and proficiencies for long term goals, such as my desire to play as a winged hussar.

Learning the gameplay occurred through a short narrative-driven tutorial mission, aligning with the Subset Principle, through which the player acquires a sword, a pistol, and a horse and meets Jaques in a scaled-down and low risk version of the game’s domain. The acquisition of items parallels the Amplification of Input Principle as the only efforts demanded of the player are a duel, a couple of melees in which the advantage is heavily in the player’s favor, and shooting a large padlock with a pistol. Input is also amplified through experience awards, in-game monetary awards, and war spoils. This also utilizes the Achievement Principle and Practice Principle since rewards are scaled to the efforts input and each effort is practice toward mastery of the game’s mechanics. Additionally, the introduction of the various movement and combat mechanics is accomplished through the Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle as each element is taught just as it becomes necessary to the accomplishment of the mission. The minimalist tutorial also aligns with the Discovery Principle, encouraging the player to figure out the complexities of the game through experimentation instead of instruction, though the balance of minimalism is sometimes detrimental, as with my lance debacle.

Other principles that the game utilized include the Situated Meaning Principle as every piece of information is supplied within the context of its use, especially in the tutorial mission as instruction is provided just as it is utilized, and the Multimodal Principle as instruction is provided through texts, spoken dialogue, and visual cues. However, it this last element, and by association the Text Principle, there is some failure on the game’s part. Working with a smaller budget than AAA developers, this game depends very heavily upon text to communicate many of its finer details, such as the relations between factions, characters, and locations. Even the conversation with Jaques de Clermont is presented entirely in text with the portrait of Jaques hovering nearby for context. This contrasts with the multimodal presentation of information supplied by the tutorial mission, which taught more fundamental gameplay, but the overall game strategy suggested by Jaques is the only reference to long term strategy provided by the game. If new players play as the host of the Let’s Play linked below does, ignoring the “wall of text” and simply skipping ahead to the end of the dialogue opportunity, they will have no frame of how to proceed in the game. Thankfully, the game supplies much in the way of experimentation within the campaign game and the custom battles, utilizing the Probing Principle overall, but this would not be as necessary for entry-level information if more multimodal information was presented.

**Support Sources**
The investigation of two major websites accurately paints the landscape in which players of //With Fire and Sword// find themselves. The Steam forum dedicated to the entire //Mount and Blade// series is inundated with material for //Warband// and the recently released //Napoleonic Wars//, sparing only a few, mostly comparative, threads for //With Fire and Sword//. On the popular //GameFAQs// website, no users have posted written walkthroughs for the title and the majority of the thread topics found on the message board are dedicated to answering specific questions posed by new players.

However, some support remains applicable to the //With Fire and Sword// player. YouTube hosts a video walkthrough series for the Polish campaign and at least one Let’s Play series, which is more critical than instructional, but can provide needed information nevertheless. Written walkthroughs have either been neglected or lost, though a wiki page for the game does provide some general setting and gameplay information.

In essence, //With Fire and Sword// has been ignored in favor of its more technically advanced and modifiable sibling, //Warband//. The lack of interest has created a lack of support for new players and most of that support is buried beneath the tide of //Warband//-related content. Yet, some sources still exist, opting for video walkthroughs and specific forum responses instead of exhaustive discussions of gameplay and informational charts.

Links:

[] (Steam Forums for the //Mount and Blade// Series)

[] (General Support and Gameplay Message Board)

[] (Polish Campaign Video Walkthrough)

[] (Video Let’s Play)

[] (Wiki)

**Overall Reflections**
//Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword// was a generally enjoyable experience, though I cannot help but think that I am of a mentality that allows this game to work despite its shortfalls. As an example, I read almost every text a game offers, so I not only appreciated Jaques de Clermont’s literary allusion, but caught his textual tutorial on long term gaming strategies. Not everybody reads the material supplied by games, so not everybody will find learning to play as reasonably difficult as I did. Also, I have studied medieval combat, so my understanding of certain mechanics, such as the incredibly slow reload on muskets and the couching of lances for cavalry charges, comes more naturally than that of the average player.

Yet, despite its shortfalls, I can’t help but appreciate the tangential learning opportunities, historical setting, literary allusions, and long term focus of the game. As much as I feel ashamed to say it, this game as well as this whole series of games is tailored for the medieval history buff who finds tremendous satisfaction in the little details like couched lances and empty muskets doubling as bludgeons. Other //Mount and Blade// games are cleaner looking, tighter feeling, and more coherent than //With Fire and Sword//, but they are only beginning to touch the same historical subject matter as this installment, which offers much of its charm, even at the expense of popularity.