Mount&Blade: With Fire and Sword
 

Got it yesterday through Steam. I'm still a bit confused as to what is new compared to the original and Warband. You can't recruit troops from villages anymore instead you hire mercenaries from Merceneray Camps. I'm assuming you do get to hire recruits somehow. Maybe you have to be the lord of a village or town for that?

Right now I'm trying to figure out which nation to sign-up with in single player.

So anyone else playing yet, planning to? Multiplayer anyone?

I have it, but I've only had about an hour or so to play it, so not very deep into it. From what I played, guns makes single player a lot harder (getting gundown down by lowly looters is embrassing). I haven't even gotten around to recruiting anyone. I've heard that you can recruit from villages once your join a faction, but I don't know how true that is.

You can recruite rescued prisoners and mercenaries from taverns and mercenary camps. I guess this is meant to go along with the idea that you are infact a mercenary and have no right to recruit the subjects of lords and kings.

One thing I've noticed is that the mercenaries I hired didn't seem to level up.

I believe it's either a bug or requires some sort of NPC to upgrade mercenaries. Most likely the former due to the nature of Mount and Blade games. Also, I believe a forum user on the Taleworlds forums has made a temporary patch for the "troops.txt" which might be the source of the bug.

Hm.. I might be picking this game up once I reach adequate affluence.

Edit: The patch is simply a quick fix from a player, so a update by the dev team would most likely take place some time later. Also, keep in mind the fix might not be a complete one and effects certain merc units from what I read.

Such a major bug already? Man, guess I need to find the update.

Oh sorry, I forgot to add, "a forum member", not someone from the Developer Team made the quickie patch. So make sure to backup your txt file.

I've not played much, but from what I've read on the Steam forums... the game is to be seriously avoided.

It's a step back from Warband.

I've done one battle (twice, died from a bullet to the face first time) and I have to say, the combat is still the same.
Easy if you're lucky, cheap as hell if you've got some bad luck.