“Woylen Village” - a Mount and Blade level

Project Overview

Engine: Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord Modding Tools

Game: Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord

“Woylen Village” is village themed map for armies of around 200 v 200 in standard Mount and Blade play. It feature three lanes that lead into large battle arenas to encourage thinking on your feet and using height differences to your advantage.

Mount and Blade is known for its tactical battles where players can control an army of their own. To facilitate tactical thinking, I created three main lanes that both attackers and defenders could use. Each lane breaks off into smaller arenas to help encourage breaking off, regrouping, and then charging the enemy again.

The Defending Army (marked by D in the image) could rally in the center and then meet their attackers head on. The Attacking Army (marked by A in the image) would move across the bridges quickly to regroup or further spread out in order to overtake the defenders.

The three lanes encourage both armies to use the space wisely in order to gain the upper hand.

Make a space that fits the designs of other villages in Mount and Blade.

Mount and Blade, while in a fictional universe, borrows heavily from history of different cultures. Their villages have a unique feeling to them according to whatever culture they are associated with. I decided to model my village off the "Empire” style, using buildings and structures that best reflected the culture I saw in other Empire villages.

Creating Landmarks

• Empire buildings are stone, mixing off-white and reds together with large arches.

• In order to help the player orient themselves, I created several weenies and landmarks in the distance.

Building the World

• The city is full of buildings and life, but I wanted to imply a larger world outside the village.

• On the attackers’ beginning area is a road leading to a large aqueduct and castle, implying the larger world outside of Woylen.

Woylen Village Proper

• I wanted Woylen to feel like a real place where people lived and worked in every day.

• Several spaces were created that armies could not get to very easily that helped to tell the stories of Woylen’s residents.

Create a visually stunning place that updates with seasons and time of day.

Mount and Blade’s world changes over time and with the seasons. As such, I wanted Woylen to also adapt and change with the seasons and time of day.

Summer: The grass is a deep green with lots of flowers and crops in the fields. The trees are thick and hard to see through.

Fall: In the fall, everything turns brown. Most flowers are gone, replaced with small shrubs. Farmlands shift to different crops or lie barren.

Winter: Snow covers the grown, with brown paths the only roads as people trek through the snow. Almost all vegetation is dormant with only small plants still around.

Spring: The grass is a bright green as everything begins to bloom and come to life again after the harsh winter. The roads are a deep brown from rain and snow melt.

Night: Woylen is well-lit with torches and fire pits. This helps its people to navigate when returning home from work or a night of fun.

Design Conventions

Conveyance

• Dirt roads contrast with vegetation to help guide players to main paths.

• Arches help funnel soldiers in-between mini arenas.

Postmortem

What Went Well

• Able to make a visually beautiful level. Mount and Blade has gorgeous and robust landscaping tools, and I was pleased with the many little vistas I was able to make in my level. I am pleased with the overall look of Woylen.

• Experimented with a new type of level design. I had never designed a level for a strategy game of this type, so I learned a lot as I researched and implemented my designs.

What Went Wrong

• Unreliable engine. Since Mount and Blade 2 is still in alpha development, both the engine and the game were very unstable. I had to work around random crashes, meshes not working, terrain painting disappearing, ETC.

• Unreliable AI. AI never quite did what I wanted them to. I eventually found ways to work around them, but it made getting a satisfying experience more difficult.

What I Learned

• Work with team to work through new/difficult tools. When working with a new or unreliable engine, working with others around you is imperative. Sharing information about what meshes crash the game, ways to fix issues, ETC are very important to being successful.