Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword

I bought With Fire and Sword after playing Warband because I enjoyed the latter. I found quickly that the SP Campaign in WFaS is lackluster and disinteresting, I heartily recommend ignoring it and buying WFaS for the online gameplay - the multiplayer experience and online community is where it really shines. The game features all the same game-types as Warband (Siege, DM, TDM, Battle, Duel) except with the addition of firearms. If you like M&B but don't like ranged combat THIS GAME IS NOT FOR YOU. Firearms have made shields and light armor relatively useless. Bows are not as dynamic or accurate as in Warband, and the archer class has largely been replaced with the Musketeer class. The fortresses and castle have changes shape to suit the new style of warfare with choke points and high walls with crenelations for the shooters. It can get a little like a shooting gallery at times, but it doesn't feel unbalanced. The Musketeer class gets a bonus to reload speed and accuracy at the expense of health. The Infantry class gets access to heavy hitting melee weapons, improved melee damage, extra health and quick movement to try and combat the range. Players must choose whether to weigh themselves down with heavy armor (to endure a little gunfire) or use their unarmored speed as an advantage in this class. The cavalry class is a marriage of the two maneuverability at the expense of groundspeed and health, this class gets access to carbines, pistols, lances and sabres. They value the open terrain where they can make best use of their speed, and can usually choose to outfit themselves with heavy armour or not to offset the danger of becoming unhorsed. A word on the multiplayer servers: I recommend playing on Westres_Siege or the other Bnet servers for best experience - there's a host of quality custom maps and people. Battle_of_the_Bastards is a good server for battle mode. Best to avoid Sparta-siege though - it's a cesspool of crappy maps, rampant teamkillers and uncaring mods.

With Fire & Sword is a gem of game. Although I do like Warband, an absolute masterpiece in its own right, the fantasy world - concerning the factions, lords and the map - is for me quite the deal breaker. A game, much like literature, must create a setting, with which the player/reader can familiarise themselves with. Calradia didn't do that for me, sadly... However, pop in With Fire & Sword, and you are transported to Eastern Europe, back to the tumultuous year of 1655, when Swedes, Russians, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, Poles and the Crimeans (with the help of the Ottomans) were at eachothers throats. Combining the amazing melee system from Warband, simultaneously adding firearms, grenades, new weapons and armor; and a small (but noticeable) graphical upgrade, this makes up for an amazing experience. Although the game is great, I implore all fans of With Fire & Sword to read the historical novels, written by Henryk Sienkiewicz, which are the inspiration for this game release. After having read his works, I found the game to be even more enjoyable. Definitely pick it up!

The game itself is simply fantastic...c'mon guys, it is Warband all in all! Plus it covers one of the most interesting events in the history of central/eastern Europe. Collapse of poish-lithuanian commonwealth, Swedish deluge, Tsars, the rise of Cossacs... plus it has pretty cool bonus - 3 storylines for each eastern european faction. So what is wrong? Bugs, bugs, bugs...! Bugs everywhere, and what's awful, many of them simply don't let you finish the game! Try to imagine spending tons of hours, following the storyline, expanding the kingdom and...crash! Some wild bug in the storyline appears and as a result - dead point. Or 'minor things' like enemy kingdom still resists even if they don't have any towns nor castles. Glitches during battlefield is just a piece of cake here, but the bugs that cannot let you finish the game...sometimes even backup save games will not help. If you have mild gaming OCD, you love to complete the game and feel that kind of satisfaction of completing sth from A to Z, than avoid this game. And I tried to play finish this at least...5 times?6? Twice with commonwealth, Muscovites, Cossacs... Maybe it is great for multiplayer but for single player gamers, like me, it is simply unplayable. Even after so many years after the release and fixing some bugs. Shame!

It's a good game for people who love history. Like Polish and Russian's.