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Hey! You need to put the files in a .zip archive to upload them.

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Waterd wrote:

If there is intention/will to discuss solutions, I could try to bring some ideas, but so far that is my experience, I’m on day 85 now, crisis didn’t even start yet, and I don’t feel like continuing, however I feel it would be interesting to start over to enjoy the early game but when i realize there is no fun ENDPOINT, I think it’s gonna be enough for me until something changes.

Well I am all up for discussing solutions. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to have some kind of slider at the map generation that lets us choose how frequent crises come. I don’t want my crises to start before day 150. You’re complaining that they didnt start at day85. Let us choose when they start. It’s a singleplayer game and as such there is absolutely no reason to force your design desicions upon us.
I can just hope for mod-support that will allow us to play a game that we love and enjoy and is tailored to our own specific wants and needs.

Anyways, if you go for maybe one more ingame week the crisis will definitely start. I think they usually start around day90.

Generally though, I think the game has a very slow progression in mind. At around day90 you probably have only seen about 50-60% of the units there are. For me, there is no better feeling than successfully daggering a Hedge Knight with a Greataxe, knowing that he can pretty much one-shot any of my guys if I make a mistake. If I manage to pull it off though, I save probably 15k crowns or so (30k if he has a named weapon) and is such a good feeling.
Sadly, Hedge Knights only show up at around day 150+. Same for Master Archers, Swordmasters and probably Orc Warlords. And the next hurdle is around day300 where they start to show up in numbers and actually pose a threat again.

TLDR; Again, I really like Min-Maxing and rolling for the perfect brother with perfect base stats and talents and traits, equipping them with famed armors and weapons etc. You seem to rather play with what you get and have an immersive experience. This is why we should get more customization options to make the game suit our individual wants and needs.

I know you won’t like that, but I would recommend you play the game on Veteran or Beginner if you don’t like the (really) slow pace of expert. There is practically no difference aside from lower income and a little bit smaller enemy party size (which should suit you). I really enjoy the harsh pace of expert and how difficult it gets. If you are already used to the expert pace, even veteran will feel way too easy to you though.

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hruza wrote:

One more specialist I tend to think increasing head hit chance might be useful would be dagger specialist using special attack which bypasses armor. Yet again, daggers themselves doesn’t give bonus to hit the head so you wouldn’t get as much out of it as with flails.

Btw.: many if not all 1tile range 2H weapons hit both head and body during attack, so I ques increasing hit chance with them is pointless. Or?

Puncture cannot do critical damage (and doesn’t get bonus damage from double-grip either), so sadly a headhunter build won’t work for daggers.

As for hitting both body and head… Only axes do that as far as I know. And even then. If you get a headshot, 100% of the damage will be applied to the head. Only if you hit the body will it also hit the head. At least thats what I remember. I am not really using greataxes because their round swing is so awkward to use.

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mrbunnyban wrote:

Sort of related, flails and axes are generally useful for the Ancient dead’s frontline troops. They have shield wall every turn, have infinite stamina and maybe even have shield expert

They do have Shield Expert and Pathfinder, sometimes I see them use Rotation. I only use flails against Auxiliaries and maybe Legionaires because their damage is somewhat unreliable, especially against armored troops. They really work well if you get a head-shot with a hard hitting weapon first which destroys the head-armor.

The 50% critical damage from head-hits only count towards HP. The 50% additional dmg from 1-h axes though counts for both armor and HP. Head-hits are quite strong but I think specializing with Headhunter only really makes sense on Crossbow users, maybe Archers, 1-h axe users (especially axe duelist) and maybe flail users.
The idea behind the Flail is that you can use your normal normal hits and probably get a headshot, then finish them off with the 2nd skill.

It also works for 2-handed weapon users as each hit from a split/swing etc will add a stack of head hunter. I guess the main question is if you can find the spare perk points, really.

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I believe that’s unique to orc warriors. I have taken damage without getting knocked down a height level before. I always thought it was working as intended though.

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I totally get what you mean. There is little enjoyment in those huge battles. It is also the reason why shield bros are so useless in the late game. You simply need the damage output from 2-handers and maybe duelists, archers, polearms to deal with those numbers.
The game becomes an endless grind for crowns to minmax brothers and equipment once you reach the late midgame and will feel slow at times. I don’t really mind the grind since im used to diablo 2 standards :).

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Hey.
I think viewing Battlebrothers as a roquelike is a mistake. Sure, it can feel that way if you wipe at day 10, but that is because the balancing of early – mid – and lategame is terrible.
Early game (let’s say day 1-50) is really difficult because world map spawns are sometimes waaaaaaaay above your level (Necrosavants at day20, 4-6 marksmen with crossbows). Then early midgame ~day 50-100 is still difficult if you had some setbacks early on but if you played perfectly you will start steam rolling any enemy that you face. Midgame would be around day 100-250 (1st and 2nd crisis maybe). This is basically where you will be invincible because none of the enemies aside from geists and orcs maybe pose a real threat. At around day 300 the late-game starts and the game sets you up against stuff like 6 honor guards and 20 legionaires or 12+ orc warriors, a warlord and 10+ young/zerkers. Or 3 Master Archers, 2 Hedge Knights, 2 Leaders and a Swordmaster. This is when even experienced soldiers can die again and the game becomes frustrating once more (but also very exciting).

Anyways. I like a lot of your suggestions for more QOL improvements.
I especially agree that we do need more transparency about game mechanics. We really need more information. I remember buying HOMM2 and 3. They had these little guide books with them explaining game and combat mechanics. Even if you buy them today on GOG you will get these as PDFs.
Don’t get me wrong. I do like trial and error concerning different strategies. The thing is it’s really hard to get to develop these tactics or strategies if you don’t know the game mechanics.

TLDR; “Late” game crises are happening in the early- to mid-game and balancing is off. BB is no roquelike as it takes forever to level your troopers and roque likes usually have very short run. BB is more like skyrim where you spend a ton of time exploring the world and leveling up imo.

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I think the only structures that hide enemy composition are ruins, graveyards/crypts and undead burial grounds at retrieve artifact missions.
Ofc, if you get ambushed during the night you can also not see enemy composition, however you will be able to see them if you hover over the enemy party on the worldmap. It can be quite difficult to hit pause in time when you’re on a caravan escort but usually it is possible if you pay attention.

As for how to deal with unclear enemy composition. If you can afford it, buy a Hawk. They are really great for scouting, especially in the woods or if the enemy spawns with the high ground. I put it on my archer in the backline, as he can still escape after releasing the hawk if needed. Frontline might get caught in the 2nd round.

If you plan to flee from the fight, only use a single brother to scout it out so you take less time to move people around. Alternatively you can Alt+F4 though ofc, that would be cheating :P.

Now about those buildings:
Retrieve artifact contracts will always have skeletons and in some cases a few Necrosavants on top of that. Hawk will help you to figure out if they have Necrosavants, then you should put some macers behind the backline to protect archers (if you even take any against undead) or polers and to stun Necrosavants. Generally, they can have Auxiliaries, Legionaires, Honor Guards, Ancient Priest, Necrosavants.

Cemetary/Crypt will have either Brigands, Nachzehrers, Wiedergangers, Fallen Heroes and sometimes Necromancers (not 100% on that one). I am certain that there are never any Geists in those locations though.

Ruins: They can have every enemy except Skeletons (and maybe Nachzehrers). I try and get information from taverns or via contracts about those locations usually. Once my guys are competent, I engage those locations with 2 Sargeants and 3 Archers to be ready for Geists and Necromancers. Again, a Hawk will help you greatly to figure out if they have a Necromancer or Fallen Heroes with Greataxe/sword and how many Geists there are, if there are more on one flank than another etc.
You might also see some footprints next to the ruins which will give you a hint as to what kind of enemy there might be.

As for fleeing: It used to be that using the flee button when not at the edge of the map always killed off some brothers or at least gave them permanent wounds. I don’t think that the fleeing mechanic right now is OP. I like not having to lose a lv20 Veteran because of a bad RNG streak. Or because I run into some Necrosavants on the worldmap early.

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RedArmy wrote:

Sekata.
Thx, i dont know about tavern rumors. Is this method give you some unique?

They sometimes tell you stories like. “Captain of militia deserted and raided armory” or “Gravediggers looking for a famed shield somewhere” stuff like that.
You have to pay attention to what they are saying. You can get up to 5 statements (first text + paying for 4 rounds). I think you pay about 26 or 28 crowns per round, so it will only be worth doing so once you hit the mid game. Early I think it’s a bit too expensive.

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Wow… Abusing this never came to mind. Now I know of this… How can I play otherwise? Especially since it feels like every Brigand has Iron Lungs (they do, right?)

I only really switch my main hand to dagger if that brother is in big trouble and needs to raise a shieldwall.

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Hey. You will find some enemy camps by simply exploring the world. Make use of mountains – they will make your sight radius on the world map huge so you can find camps easily.
As for contracts, I know it can be hard to find decent ones in the beginning. Always check what kind of contract it is, you can always decline it later. Sometimes there are 2-3 skull cargo deliveries that pay quite well in the early game and aren’t dangerous.

Actually, if you’re playing on beginner you can probably afford decent-ish armor from the start and you could do those 2-skull contracts without much problems. Sometimes 1-skull contracts are way harder than 2-skull. Don’t let it scare you off. Just skip 3-skull contracts if you are not confident because those can be really difficult sometimes.

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@dyslxeic I agree. It would be very nice if dismissed guys get remembered somewhere too. Once I get my campaign rolling, usually nobody dies anymore but I still dismiss my early grunts and hire better replacements.

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LasseFin wrote:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135513901707647830/

Good charts which shows that crossbows aren’t really weaker.

Did you read the conclusion?

Judging from these insights I think crossbows aren’t actually that much weaker than bows when it comes to raw damage per se. However there are a few factors here that break them apart:
1) Bow’s quick shots scale extremely well with high ranged skill. If you can consistently hit both every turn your dps will skyrocket.
2) Crossbows scale very poorly with perks. Most bonus damage perks only work with limited synergy with their attack style whereas they fit the bow perfectly.

This here is key. The damage perks I don’t think are that important anyways. It happens to me frequently that an archer kills three enemies in one turn. You won’t see that happening with a crossbow.

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Sekata wrote:

Tier by Tier, the crossbow has advantage on armor piercing stat. The only exception appears to be the masterwork bow, which has 75% armor pen. Even then, it’s equal to the heavy crossbow in the armor pen stat, and eclipsed by it if the brother using the crossbow has the Crossbow Mastery perk (+20% to top out at 95% pen). I’m using the wiki for the numbers, so this is reliant on them being up to date. Either way, the crossbow mastery perk gives it an edge that bow mastery doesn’t confer.

Ah. I checked again. Warbow has 65% eff against armor 35% armor pen and Heavy Crossbow has 75% eff. 50% pen.
I really wonder if the armor penetration is enough to deal with Hedge knights. Does he die before his armor gets completely shredded? How many shots is that?
On my guy with crossbow mastery and heavy crossbow: 50-70 to HP, 0(35)-49 can Ignore Armor, 37-52 dmg to armor.
If a Hedge Knight is wearing Coat of Scales and Full Helmet: With armor taken into account (-10% of remaining armor) this drops to 9-24 on the first shot, 12-29 on the second (provided it hits the same bodypart). It really depends on how much HP they have I guess. I was thinking around 200 but maybe I’m wrong.
I suppose a famed crossbow with extra armor penetration and damage would be insane. Imagine 70-90 dmg and 100% penetration with mastery. The 20-25 damage that the armor will absorb won’t matter that much if ~50-60 dmg go through anyways, not to mention crits.

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Crossbows have the same armor effectiveness as bows right? So why would a crossbow be better against heavily armored targets? I rather attack twice with the bow and shred more of their armor than do a tiny bit of damage against their HP.
Also, against orcs I have to move my ranged units around a lot so their warriors don’t get any ideas to knock back one guy and go after them.

I think crossbows would have to be tweaked so they can make use of the berserk perk. Famed crossbows are probably also a lot better if they can literally one-shot any raider. Then again, famed war bows are probably even stronger.

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