Topic: Early game far too hard.

didnt have time to play the game recently, but the day the game was fully released, i started a new game, the first mission after killing Hoggort was hard, it was a 1 skull mission, to hunt down the creature terrifying a village. i met a party of 6 Ghouls in this mission, they have 1 mega ghoul in the party, it doomed my company very quickly. guess i am not that expert like i thought i was.

Anonymous wrote:

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May I draw your attention to a couple of in-game hints? Like for instance:

“Expect to lose some men”
“Not every contract is worth the risk”
“You don’t have to be a hero, you’re running a business”

Those are not meant to be random lines put there just to sound edgy. Those are meant to be hints and statements about what kind of game you are playing.

There are plenty of games where the player is meant to find satisfaction in becoming a superpowered superhuman superhero, effortlessly dispatching legions of enemies. Or those that call themselves “realistic” and allow you to be some edgy-as-f*** spec-op soldier with improbable aiming skills and magically regenrating health. Nothing wrong with that if that’s your cup of tea.
But well, guess what – BB is not that kind of game. It is meant to be more like games of yore, when you were supposed to put a lot of effort and restart many times before you succeeded. The odds are not stacked in your favor and that’s what’s making the victory meaningful and rewarding.

So no, the game is not “far too hard”, it is simply hard. And honestly that’s how I – and many others – like it.

I don’t feel like dissecting your entire post, but I’ve read it and for someone who claims to have a long experience with the game you are stating quite a lot of things that are simply untrue. Skeletons requiring “special weapons”? Like, lets see: swords, axes, maces, cleavers, flails, hammers? Basically anything that is not a spear, dagger or bow? I’d point your attention to the fact that at first you only face auxilliaries that can be killed even with a damned spearwall (after you’ve destroyed any armor they rarely have with a bow at 100% effectiveness), but someone who “finished the game many times on hard mode” (BTW, how do you “finish” an open-ended sandbox is beyond my humble understanding, but whatever) and “understands the combat fully” is probaby well aware of that. So I’ll just live it at that, though I really, REALLY could go on for quite a while.

Hope that you enjoy the game.

Keep in mind that retreating from combat no longer incurs DEATH, only temporary injuries. Furthermore, you only get injuries for brothers who are not on the sides of the map. In fact, ancient auxilaries have such low initiative you should have no problem reaching the edge of the map with your whole team.

Hi guys!

It seems to me that the amount of quests available is mostly depending on your map. I started a new campaign yesterday, most civillian settlements are close to the coast (in the south) – since south of that there is no land, there is less physical space to spawn camps and missions. I constantly get caravan escorts across the whole map for 600 gold. I rather decline that one and go to the next settlement to see if they have a raider contract that actually gives some gold.
Don’t get me wrong. Caravan quests are great in the (late) midgame to lategame where hardly anything can kill you anymore. However early there are many roaming groups that can simply annihilate your whole team and we don’t have the crowns to get anything from the “well supplied” status as long as the destination produce high value trade goods like salt, gems etc. maybe for cheap tools – but let’s be honest it’s still not worth going across the whole map for and possibly having to abandon the caravan anyways.

I would like to see more contracts that are actually worth doing and don’t require you to go across the whole map.

The main problem is that we don’t know how the game is scaling difficulty and the devs don’t give an answer. You getting 7 raiders at an early stage should not happen in Normal difficulty imo. I expect that on expert and don’t mind losing a guy or two in exchange for some T2-T3 weapons and worn mail shirts.

Also, I think skeleton contracts are ones of the easiest in early game and they sometimes give high-value loot like chalice or ancient coins, gemstones. Keep a few swords, flails etc to deal with them. Use shieldwall if you get surrounded and break their formation with shield bash if one of your guys gets in trouble. Even in lategame, I do not get why people are complaining so much about skeletons. The only time I get into trouble is when they come with ~10 necrosavants and priest. As soon as you have some guys with Greatswords legionaires fall like flies. Also duelists can usually kill them without even destroying their armor since their base HP is laughable. Even Honor guards are not much of a threat when your guys wear Coat of Scales and decent helmets with Battleforged.

Anyways, I do agree the early game is a bit too hard compared to late and midgame. There is almost no difference between a lv1 and a lv3 brother because they will mostly have the same gear while their stats don’t increase that much unless they get +3 melee defense rolls. On the other hand, once you get Underdog, Berserk and Bow Mastery you party gets immensly more powerful but enemies don’t.

Anonymous wrote:

all replies appreciated :)
I see now that my map is totally messed up, I only have 2 small villages at the top, then two at the bottom -which is like 3-4 days travel away from eachother. None of the other places will even give out missions because they are locked.

Seems to me there needs to be some crafting rules on map creation to ensure you can actually get enough level one low rep missions to actually play….

Exactly. I notice huge differences in my playthroughs depending on map constellation. Optimally you have small “circles” of civillian settlements where you can get quests and trade goods.

GlyphGryph wrote:

Skeletons early game are great because all of their missions can be won by running away, and you still get paid.

Embrace the proper mercenary mentality of the grab-and-dash

Tried that yesterday. Had the event where I could either just take the required Item or take a Crypt Cleaver too. I was greedy. The next thing I know is my band of merry misfits is facing 12 ancient legionaires. Did an orderly retreat and kept the cleaver but did not finish the quest objective. Ended up aborting the mission.

Did it not work because of the cleaver event or because they fixed it in general?