Explorer Alpha - Features Preview - Explorer! mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Good evening! I am pleased to announce that an Alpha version of Explorer is nearing completion. The mod has taken a lurching step towards resembling a fully realised product: It is still not there yet. But some good progress has been made!

If you're totally new to Explorer, you can read some of the past articles to get acquainted, or try the Demo version.

I also want to start by saying:

Thank you to everyone supporting Explorer! on Patreon

Everyone who is/was supporting Explorer! on Patreon - I can't thank you enough. The extra motivation of proving I'm not a grifter really does make a difference! Shoutouts to all of you!

Alpha Features

The Explorer Alpha is still rather barebones: But a lot of work has been done "under-the-hood", improving the original systems from the Demo, as well as re-implementing some features from Native, and laying the groundwork to add more content in the future. As such, this is not a changelog or an exhaustive list. These are just some of the "big" features that are new to the Alpha.

Sieges

One of the staples of M&B: Sieges!

The actual battles still resemble the familiar Native sieges (for now), however there is a much greater "flow" of battle. Instead of both teams filtering into a meat grinder, extra ladders and options for attackers can force the defence back, bringing the fight through the streets and all the way back to the keep. Or skip the ladders entirely, and have your spies open the gates from within...

Siege Camps

The biggest change with Sieges so far is easily the Siege Camp:

When you besiege a castle or town, you will create a siege camp at your current location. From here, you can plan your attack, build siege equipment, and launch your assault on the walls - your camp is also where you and your reinforcements will spawn when attacking so it is important to choose the right place to set up your camp: Close enough for reinforcements to come quickly in the assault, but far enough to avoid the danger of defender sallies and archers on the walls.

After setting up your camp, you can plan your assault by talking to any of your companions. You can find your top companion, best engineer, and best tactician gathered in the player's tent, along with any other party leaders who are helping with the siege.

Village Raids

Players can now either extort goods through intimidation, or seize them by force by attacking a village. After a raid, players are given the options to either leave, loot the village, or to claim the village as a fief. Unlike Native, village ownership is not strictly tied with the nearest castle/town: As long as the player is prepared to defend it, a village can be captured independently.

Of course, a more popular option may be to simply loot and burn the village. But watch out! If any of the peasants from the initial raid managed to flee the scene, they will try to send reinforcements to stop you.

Looting also features throwable torches that start fires on contact with scene props - and can be used by both players and AI. (Though only in villages, for now.)

Bonus: Raven

Check the video above to see it in motion!

This was one of the crazier ideas so far, but I really like how it turned out. Press M to take control of a raven, and fly around using WASD+mouse direction. Despite being a little unorthodox, the raven can be very useful for orientation, scouting, and even issuing commands to troops. Since the raven requires no input to travel forward, it can also be used as a hands-free way to travel over long distances.

But beware! Enemies will still target and try to shoot down the raven. You also have to avoid flying into objects - that's just common sense, right?

And that's all for now! Thanks for reading folks! I actually have a couple more things I wanted to mention here... So maybe there will be a pt.2!

Release Date?

"Soon."