Topic: Having trouble with the difficulty of the game

Well, these forums seem to be dead. So yeah, there wont be much answers for your cry of help.

Now about the difficulty. This game is made having loses in mind, it is one of its main points. It is hard to not lose people, especially at the start. You could have noticed that the starting guys and the cheap ones are pretty weak. You better get used to losing men and even if you dont lose them but they get a lot of perma injuries you will have to let em go. What could ease your game is to be cautious.

Try to get 1 skull quests, and even maybe avoid caravan defenses since those are a bit harder. Y
ou should equip your people with shields that is a big boost to defense especially at the start. And not the smallest one, but the bigger round ones. Also consider tactical choises like having people with weapons that reach further for attack and the shielded ones mainly for defense, with some supporting xbow or bowmen.
Always have food, money, medicine.
If you see semo extra cheap guys, get em, even tho they are weak and need equip they still a body to hit which can save a more useful unit potentialy. Dont attack goblins, orcs, brigands, marksmen, they will hurt.
Try not to attack into forests cuz then your people will start at shitty positioning.

Still the main problem is that you are used to games where you always win and save all the people. This is not a game like that. You will lose men, you will flee (by going to the edge of the map and pressing the flee button so they wont get hurt or die) and you will hire more and better dudes equipping with better equip when the money is aviable. That wont save your men tho, just ease it a lil bit. If you want to have it as easy as possible, cheat up some gold and buy the best stuff that the men can wear (fatigue is very important stat). Still they will die, just less frequently. To get to the point where you can be safe, is very hard, you need strong people to begin with (like swordmasters, hedgeknights, etc) which cost a lot, then you need to lvl em which is hard, you need to get them the right talens for the chosen purpose, and you still need the equipment.

Welcome to the Battle Brother.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

Enemy forces overwhelming (I think that’s a status effect, so as to avoid confusion – outnumbering) you is not a disadvantage, it’s far worse; it’s hopeless at times.

That depends on what enemy you face and what is level and equipment of your company. Being outnumbered by bunch of thugs at the beginning of the game is not the same thing as being outnumbered by them in the later stages of the game.

Remember, you can always back out of the fight, most of the time even without getting your men injured. Evaluate your enemy at the start of the combat and if you thing he’s too strong, retreat. You aren’t expected to win every fight.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

I don’t think my choices in tactical positioning do anything other than some hits to the opponent forces, which most likely miss either way.

Positioning is important. Terrain can play huge role, unless you fight on a open plain. It’s however up to you to use it. How you place your brothers is also important.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

I can not even use the axeman (who, now, is my spearman) properly, whose sole purpose is to break down shields. Instead, he misses 6 out of 8 attacks.

Breaking down shields is mostly waste of time. It’s common beginners mistake. You are wasting your turn and enemy will hit harder because 1H weapon held in both hands have 25% damage bonus. There are situations when it’s viable tactics but generally you want to reliably hit them over their shields. At the beginning of the game when your brothers have low melee skill, use flails. They ignore shield.

That starting 2H axe is a death trap. Change it to 1H+shield as soon as you can afford to. 2H weapons are very good and you’ll be fielding lot of them later in the game, but they require high skills and heavy armor to work.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

Random terrain is a huge turn off for me. Your allied forces are spawned in god-knows-where, but the enemy forces have the benefits of deploying properly, as you’d expect how two parties would engage.

Allies will always deploy alongside of you when they are reinforcing you (you have engaged enemy first). When you reinforce them (they engaged first) then they spawn on one of the sides of the map depending how many parties are involved.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

Defending and then counter-attacking is useful. And then there’s times where this one enemy dodges all three attacks. (On ground terrain).

And then there’s times when this one brother of your dodges all three attacks. Success in attacks depends on your skill, enemy skill, equipment and a random factor.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

I can’t feel the enemy morale breaking even when there’s a few of them left. Those engaged in combat will not try to flee

Morale does not depend on how many of them are left. However intelligent enemies (humans, goblins, orcs…) will usually try to flee when there are only one or two left.

Certain events force morale check on a character (AI or yours). Getting damaging hits and receiving injuries, seeing allies get killed or fleeing and few other things (making one enemy flee can cause chain rout). However characters with high resolve have better chance to resist these checks and maintain morale. Different types of enemies have different resolve and some (undead) are completely fear resistant and will newer break and flee.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

instead acting aggressively and attacking your weakest warrior.

Finally game with decent AI.

N1GHTMAR3 wrote:

That’s it so far. I am not used to challenging games as I don’t play them, however I purposely turned on the easiest difficulty for that reason. I can’t walk away without casualties if I don’t outnumber the enemy by at least 1-2 men. I’m really desperate when they actually have more numbers. This is more of a “How can I actually make the game fun and not frustrating” like thread.

Check some let’s plays for inspiration on how to play at the beginning of the game. Here is short let’s play made by the developers which is sort of a tutorial. It’s bit old and does not include all DLCs and patches but is still generally valid as far as gameplay stile is concerned:

Some advice.
Buying the best armor is not always the best option because then you lack funds for other things.
Hire some cheap soldiers. Farmers, brawlers are one of the best early choices.
Equip them well(but cheaply – cloth is enough but sometimes you can spot damaged armor on market that you can buy cheap and then repair).
On begging and early the most cost efficient combo is cheap cloth/leather armor plus CAP(helmets are rather costly but heck even hat is better than nothing). Any form of head protection is essential as hits to the head will mostly kill or maim your soldier if he not wear any. It is even more important than having a armor because it come with bonus(+50%) dmg. Which often lead to one shooting your guys even with weak low tier weapons.
>so any man need a cap
>and some cheap armor
Forget two handed weapons – with low defense skill and no armor and perks you will get hit often and they are not reliable hitters as you will miss often with low attack skill.
So early the best combo is shield plus one handed weapon. Shield is obvious it increase defense directly and block enemy hits increasing survival of your troops. It also comes with two great skills – one that increase defense even more and second that allow you push enemy around and is great utility skill.
>So Cap, armor and shield for your frontline troops. With it they should survive longer.
Don’t forget that putting your troops on high ground offer advantage both in defense and in offense against enemy on lower ground. Its 10% both to defense and attack chance so early its really important. positioning is the key both for defense and offense.
Surrounding enemy not only grant better chance to hit him(+5% chance to hit per ally – but this work for enemy too) but also can trigger morale checks and lower enemy morale or even make them panic and run.
Early most of your troops should consist of shieldmen.
Now offense. For your frontline troops spear, sword or flail is the best early.
>spear is great because basic attack come with +20 chance to hit and its pretty reliable weapon even damage is not impressive, don’t worry it hit often and if you concentrate attacks enemy will die fast, it also have ability Spearwall that offer more crowd control mostly by denying enemy movement(so good to protect your flanks or denied enemy access to your weaker troops) or make enemy move get hit making him bleed and waste his Action points
>swords are pretty decent weapons that have solid damage(better than spear) and +10 chance to hit on basic attacks
>flails normal attack ignore enemy shields basic defense bonus which make your troops hit more often against enemy with shields(although spear is still more reliable against them) and also offer special attack that hit enemy head ONLY(which is great because early enemy often not wear any head protection – or weak one and you can often one-two hit them plus if you don’t destroy their armor you have chance to loot it)
With these weapons you can reliable hit enemy.
I recommend spears as they are cheap and reliable weapon with lot of utility.
Your main damage should come from a backrow – a either xbowmen or pikeman. The polearms have 2tile range so you can use it from safety and also it allow you to concentrate your attacks. It also have solid damage and accuracy bonus but is not cheap so early even pitchfork is fine.

So:
>recruit farmers and brawlers
>equip them with cheap head protection and armor and SHIELDS
>have one or two brother with polearms or ranged(preferably xbows as they are more accurate early) to support your initial xbow bro
take high ground when you can
>tie enemy with your shieldmen
>then concentrate attacks where you have advantage and defend(by raising shields) where enemy have
>kill enemy units in place where you can advantage and then use them to crush rest

Some excellent advices to start here.
Thanks you all.