About this mod
A reimplantation of the freelancer idea
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
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Translations
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- Changelogs
All of the code in this mod has been written by me and none of the code from the previous 1.6.0 version of freelancer has been used in accordance with the wishes of that mod’s author. The overall design direction was largely based on my own personal preferences and feedback I received from my friends rather than trying to emulate the features in the 1.6.0 version of Freelancer.
I still would like to thank bloctheworkerbloc, the author of the previous Freelancer mod(Freelancer at Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)) for bannerlord and Taragoth, the author of the warband Freelancer mod(Freelancer 1.5 at Mount & Blade Warband Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)) for their incredible work in pioneering this idea.
personal retinue at enlistment rank 6 you are allowed to have your own band of retainers join you as is the case with many elite soldiers of the time. Retinue is limited to just hero units (companions + adult family) who aren't currently busy or prisoner and will move from their current location to join you. They will fight along you in battles and their wages will be compensated by the lord you are serving.
2 addition perk effects are added for each of the combat skills. They only benefit the player in a way relevant to serving as a soldier as to not having any impact on balance of the later game.
dynamic wanders will now seek employment as soldier with lords just like the player. It gives them something to do other than hang out at the tavern getting drunk all day. This will allow wanders to dynamically increase their combat skills through battles over time. Employment with lords is only temporary, so the player can still eventually hire a particular companion currently employed by a different clan. Also, the number of companions in the world is increased and scaled by the number of lord parties in the world as not to make it too difficult for the player recruit companions in the later game.
offer of vassalship with additional reward upon reaching 20000 faction reputation
faster healing rates while serving in a lord’s party. By default, this is around 24hp per day at 0 medicine and scales with the player’s medicine skill to an expected value of 103hp per day at 330 medicine. Healing rate is tripled when the lord’s party is waiting in a settlement. I found that the slow base game healing rate made gameplay less enjoyable.
option to commanding formations such as Infantry, ranged, cavalry or horse archers at enlistment rank 6 or higher
combat training missions using practice weapons when at the arena of a town. Training is split between melee, ranged and mounted combat and is a decent way to gain xp for combat skills if the party isn't engaging in a lot of battles. There is even a small chance to gain extra skill in attribute points in the corresponding skills while training.
option to lure bandits into an ambush to trick enemy bandits into engaging your party. Gives tactics xp and
option to ride out with cavalry to attack enemy villager parties and caravans for even more things to kill and loot and also for people who want to role play a cruel and greedy character
faction and lord reputation gained by serving a particular faction and lord and designed to incentivize serving with the same faction and lord if the party you are serving in is destroyed. The sum of party and lord reputation will determine the starting enlistment tier and xp when reenlisting.
ability to participate in tournaments without leaving the party. Winning will grant xp towards the next promotion
caravan career path same as above
ability to buy bandages seems quite unrealistic to me that you can instantly recover to full health by paying money. I also wanted hp to be more a resource that the player has to manage and make tradeoffs in how best to utilize hp in different activities
battle brothers in my opinion the 5 soldiers you got to command did not make much of a meaningful difference in battles and I think it's better to just allow the player to control an entire formation at higher ranks
bodyguard duty I personally found this mechanic to be very frustrating given how often the AI blindly suicide charges into combat
fame, loyalty, popularity too many numbers that I found was quite difficult for my small brain to track and make sense of
mutiny, gambling, buying drinks for troops related to the numbers above. I did not find myself ever using any of these options when I played with the 1.6.0 version of Freelancer besides just to test out what they did
events outside of battles done through wait menus (such as scouting, hunting, training) I rather events happen through missions rather than menus to make things more immersive. Also found it quite frustrating how you would get completely injured if you were doing one of these events and a battle started
find lord quest I always hated tracking down lords after they were defeating. Finding lords on the map is one of the worst parts of bannerlord. Also the faction and lord reputation system I added largely serves the same purpose of saving progress towards the next promotion.
General clans seemed like feature bloat to me and I personally prefer transitioning from a solider to a vassal over becoming a landless general. It fits better with the natural progression of bannerlord.
Equipment like with the 1.6.0 version of Freelancer equipment is tied to your enlistment tier. However you are not forced into following a particular branch of the troop tree and you can switch out your gear whenever you like even to lower tier gear. Another major change is that when you enlist, the gear you were previously wearing gets added to your inventory. This way you can supplement the gear you are given with gear you already own.
Ask for leave you can no longer leave the party for a 2 day period at 0 cost. I found this to be quite unrealistic. To terminate the contract early, you must now bribe the commander. Unlike abandoning the party, this will not cause any criminal rating, relations loss and reputation loss with the faction you are serving.
Assignments just like in the 1.6.0 version of Freelancer these roles give passive xp to the player. This has been expanded upon with more roles and new descriptions that I wrote. More importantly, most of these roles now have hidden effects on the party. For example foraging for food adds to the party’s daily food stocks, drilling troops will allow a handful of troops in the party to gain a moderate amount of XP each day and being the surgeon with high medicine skill will reduce the number of deaths in battle.
Features with minor changes
Retirement/Honorable discharge largely the same. Main difference compared to Freelancer is that the entire equipment set can be kept and not just the chest piece and there is also a bonus in this mod for reenlisting when the lord tells you your term of service has ended. Faction and lord reputation gets reset upon retiring although unlike deserting there is no relations loss and criminal rating gain.
Desertion will cause you to lose a lot of relations and gain criminal rating with the faction you are serving just like in freelancer. In addition, all reputation with the faction and lords of the faction are reset.
Battle commands only addition is a toggleable option to hear commands for all formations instead of just the one you are in
In addition, all the Menu UI text and dialogue lines in this mod are written by me and are completely different to the dialog in the 1.6.0 version of Freelancer. I have also reworked several actions that were done through pressing buttons on a menu to actual conversation missions to make it more immersive.
Certain adjustable settings can be found in the settings.xml file in the module folder for this mod
There have been a few complaints that I “stole the idea and concept” from the previous Freelancer mod and I should therefore allow anyone to use my code however they like. I do not even understand how they can even draw an equivalence between me spending several hundred hours writing, testing, and debugging the code for this mod from scratch as being the same as someone else spending 5 minutes dragging and dropping my files into their project. Freelancer as an idea just boils down to serving as a soldier in a party and I’m pretty sure someone thought of that idea the day that the first Mount and Blade game was released. Freelancer as a mod has been around since the early years of warband and even the previous author of the Freelancer mod for bannerlord admitted that freelancer isn't a trademarked term and that anyone can make their own version of Freelancer if they use their own code.
If you still feel I have done something wrong legally or against the terms of service of this site, then I encourage you to use the report abuse button and file a report against me.
If you feel I haven’t broken any rules but still feel what I am doing is still morally objectionable, then I encourage you to boycott my mod.