Topic: Strategy, Guide, Tactics, Tipps, Newbie Help …?

Equipment
Starting out I’ve found that equipping your starting brothers as well as you can is the best bet. I’ve had good luck with spears and shields at the start. Your Brother’s melee skill is extremely low at the start, and while big damage is sexy, being able to hit enemies and overwhelm them is important in the beginning. As far as armor goes, I’ve found spending the majority of your starting money getting your starting brothers well equipped. This means buy up the aketon, or the mail shirt if available. Grab whatever low end helmets are available. After that’s all settled grab the lowest cost merc available. Lean towards Daytalers and Farmhands and hope your new Brother’s aren’t dodgey as far as perks.

Caravans
Always friendly. From what I’ve gathered these are what determine what equipment is available in towns so even if you could pillage them you would be shooting yourself in the foot. Although playing the heel would be fun.

Castles
Like Malthus said you can’t take them over or build them. It would be excellent if you could grab land and transform from a minor military band into a full fledged power in the region.

Orcs
Again like Malthus mentioned avoiding orcs is best until you have a full band that’s both experienced and well equipped. Some Orc Young can be fought relatively early if you have a few experienced (4-5 level 2-4) Brothers and some spears. Keep your Brothers close enough to support each other when they inevitably get charged. Use of Shieldwall + Spearwall perks can give you free damage on charging Orcs. Or keep them out entirely if you’re lucky on rolls. Once they’re in, I’ve relied heavily on spears and overwhelm bonus. Impale them with a spearman, then have a heavier hitting Brother (one with an axe, sword, or two handed weapon) come in to lay on the pain. Also, if you figure out the positioning, you can engage on an Orc before he even charges, normally this means you’re in his face without an attack or shieldwall on, but you aren’t stunned either. Only do that if you’re confident your Brother can take a hit though.

Have fun experimenting with them and find out what works for you though.

PS Withered Vampires are literally hellspawn.

Great to have such a helpful community coming into existance :)
Thanks guys!

Well since most of the points are pointed out all I can add is…
Chose your enemy wisely, it is better to let those orcs to raid a village than to be massacred yourself. It is no shame to run from the werewolves when they clearly overpower you. Don’t be the hero you are not, if you want to get rid of bandits in a region look around in villages for proper jobs so you get even more out of the fights. It is not shameful to accompant the guards and fight on their side, you will get the experience and even loot a more safe way, besides you get the feel for bigger battles that personally I find quite nice. You are a mercanary in a deadly world, why take a caravan escort mission throught an enemy territory when you can take the other one that is safe and has a low chance to be ambushed.

In battles shields save lives, get them, get them all. Don’t shot the enemy who is surrounded by your troops, most probably you will hit your comrade in the back, perhaps even kill. When equiping your sellswords, and leveling stats, do try to have a minimum of 60-70 fatigue so you will be able to execute at least 2-3 special weapon skills like spearwall or riposte. Stamina management is the most important, going heavy armor as soon as possible is not the right way, you will end up without stamina just a sandbag for enemies to punch. You can test your stamina management againt undead armies, huge wiederganger hordes will show you all the errors you still have, be warned tho they are deadly if you run out of stamina.

Have back up equipment, since the weapons and shields break in battle. Nothing is worse than to be in the perfect spot with a broken weapon. Even at the worst cases, remember you can pick items up from the ground! You can freely switch between items in inventory at any pont, doing so will cost you 4ap / item if you do not have the utility perks. Especially important in long battles against armored enemies as orcs. Always remember, here are no predestined character classes or roles, you can always have a weapon set for a different role or purpose. Do not have axes to destroy shields, use flails to igneore them instead. Archers are making it hard for you, switch to back up tower shields. Spearwall done it’s work but now you neeed damage, get out that other weapon of your belt. Archers ran out of arrows, it is ok just swith to the other quiver from your backpack. It is one of the things I love about this game, you can play as you want without limitations, most items and skills are viable or you can makem them to be.

One more point: use the delayed action to your advantage. First, I often wait for all my enemies to move first, unless I get a clear ranged shot right away.

Second, if you have an adjacent unit ready to take a swing, think about delaying his action if you can first move others into proximity to surround the enemy, and also if a different unit has the opportunity to stun him, break his shield or wear down his armor before you strike.

Also don’t be afraid to play on Easy for awhile until you get the mechanics down. Normal from the start is bloody unforgiving.

I apologize in advance if I’m mentioning stated/redundant points because I didn’t read any post (except the first) in this thread. I’m new to this game so I wanna explore the game myself. Also, I’m kinda noob in strategy game like this so don’t expect reliable ideas.

0) Why can they own me while we’re both wearing the same thing? –> Are you sure you’re wearing the same gear? Did you pay attention to the way they move and strike? Try and mimic your human enemies. You will pick up a lot of essential basic stuff.
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Spoilers
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1) pick your fight –> Though not stated, you have “The Hedgehog” passive buff. On world map, you always move slightly faster than any other unit. So you can outrun/bully anyone of your choice. But you have to pay attention when you approach forest, as units in forest can only be detected when you’re very near. Yes, it might be too late to turn back when you noticed them, so be ready to press pause.

2) picked the wrong fight –> somehow the randomly generated terrain doesn’t suit your taste or you’ve just found out that 1 orc is as strong as 2.5 human, load game or retreat. DO NOT fight a battle which you think there is 75% chance to lose.

3) if you can’t beat em, join…. -> Ahem, join ANOTHER team. Run for the nearest guard tower, they will deploy “the punishers” if hostile unit is nearby. Are punishers really punishing? Can they be defeated? IF they’re defeated………. the guard tower will deploy another team of punisher until………. the enemy is punished. If you’re too weak to kill steal for exp in the co-op battle, you can still obtain equipments if your side emerge victorious.

3b) I like popcorns and I insist to see caravans suffer –> lure an enemy unit into the caravan, now sit back and watch. (I’ve never tried this myself, it’s too inhumane)

4) why do you need archers? –> They have low DPS and you always have to protect them. But sometimes, God of Terrain favors you. Your team might appear on high hills (by the time enemy detours to your picnic location, half of them is dead. But this only applies to light armored enemy.) or natural tree fortress (with very few entrance to guard). IMO, make ¼ of your team as archers is a good idea in mid phase of the game, before your team turn into heavy armored units or armorless berserkers/assassins(melee unit with perk Perfect Focus)

5) watch your steps –> all friends and foes can move 4 grids/steps per turn (except werewolf). If you stand at the 4th grid in front of an enemy, he can only get close with insufficient AP to attack you. This will enable you to have far better planning in battle.

6) I noticed the armor breaking wpn is only good at breaking armor –> yes, you’re right. I can tell you slashing wpn will not harm armor much too. In order to kill enemy efficiently, you need two types of weapon. You can assign half of your melee units to equip armor breaking wpn. Or, get both Quick Hands & Bag and Pelts perks. This is more devastating than any first tier perk in offense category.

7) Shift the frontline –> The “frontline” enables your unit to face a maximum of 2 enemy units. Of course, if you feel lucky today you can cope 6 enemies with a unit with Shieldwall. Why do you need to control the frontline? Because enemy is a tactic genius. They tend to swarm towards the upper/lower end of your frontline OR the weak spot of your frontline (your fragile units included archers and units without shields). It’s very clever as they bully your vulnerable units with larger numbers and rendering your ace melee units unproductive. So make sure you adjust the frontline or formation timely.

8) I’m a tactician but also The Manager –> Reload the game when stats gained is not quite favorable. Expel the high level faithful buddy who fought life and death battles with you, if he has low stats at level 1. Replace his position with a genius (with high stats at lv 1). Why do I have to do these painstaking and cruel things? Because this is the only way to the Ultimate Team.

9) I insisted to fight orcs anyway, even I’m not a fan of LOTR –> you knew orcs warriors have A LOT of head+body armor, a lot of hp, and with devastating wpn. Ranged units have no way to defeat them (only scratch the orcs a little before death arrives). You must rely on melee units. The core essence of melee battle is, let’s see who have better weapons and armors, and nobody is going to stop until someone dies. Because AoC(Area of Control) system doesn’t allow you to leave (or it’s not wise to leave). Long story short, your units need to reach certain level, picked the correct perks, and has sufficient armor in order to defeat the orcs. So you can only overpower them, but not outwit them.

Sky wrote:

ManaSeed wrote:

8) I’m a tactician but also The Manager –> Reload the game when stats gained is not quite favorable.

You sure about the tactitian and manager? Seems like a plain save scumer to me. Worst possible tip of the century. Don’t do it. It will ruin the fun and flow of the game.

I’m not sure but I think it will reduce the chances of getting owned, as original poster requested. Max stats growth is 200% of min stats growth.

No offense but I think you’re kinda harsh towards the original poster. It’s like asking him not to load the game after being wiped out in a battle. If you can load game after being wiped out……. Why can’t you load game after +2, +2, +2 catastrophe? They key is, don’t overdo it like an obsessive fool (except for OCD or perfectionist). You should only delete your saved game after you’re wiped out like, 3 times. This is what I deem fair to the original poster.

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P.S.
Hey, I can’t edit my previous post… so I’ll leave this here. Engage battle near town enables militita to join your battle. Someone has to die in war, but it doesn’t have to be your men.

I’m a huge fan of the Quick Hands utility perk. Most people give 2-hander troops either the billhook, great sword or large axe. I would recommend giving them Quick Hands and 2 2-handed weapons, one being the billhook. I can’t even guess the number of times an enemy was 2 spaces away, effectively neutralizing my 2-hander for 1 turn. But with quick hands and a billhook in reserve you can still make an attack. It also allows your 2-hander to keep a safe distance from orc warriors and remain useful.

Quick Hands also makes your archers tough and downright vicious. There is a lot of perk overlap between an offensive archer build and a 2-hander build. So at level up I increase both ranged and melee attack and then alternate between initiative and stamina. At level 4 or 5 give your archer the Quick Hands and a Great Sword. A Great Sword because it hits hard enough to destroy nearly any armor, is the most versatile large weapon, has increased accuracy, has light stamina cost for a large weapon, does the most HP damage and leaves 1 item slot open for an extra quiver. Enemy usually have to move 3 or more spaces to get at your archer which gives you a turn to switch weapons and lop off their head. Leather armor works for this type of archer but basic chain or full chain are best. There is now less danger in closing to within 2 spaces of the enemy (usually just behind your front lines) and taking advantage of your 50% damage close combat archery bonus. It also eliminates the need for the archer to equip a billhook. In one fight I had an archer kill 2 ghouls before switching to his great sword and going on to kill another 4 undead by himself. The last 2 advantages this archer build provides are that enemy archers are less likely to move out of 4 space melee range vs your archer which allows you to quickly switch weapons and close the distance, avoiding a long chase. And in reverse the enemy will expend all of their action points to close with your archer, sometimes putting themselves at the bottom of an elevation change or another terrible position which allows for a powerful first strike or a quick surround by your other units.