Taito

[Taito]

Hallo Mitsikos

Do you really think it is fine to encounter 5 necroservants in the first few days? I think not.

Beginner is easy enough, veteran is doable with practice and expert I didn’t try, so I can’t say. The jump of the difficulty from beginner to veteran is just a bit to step for my taste. If there were a difficulty setting between veteran and beginner, this would be great.

There are also some weird spikes in the scaling. Suddenly there are orc warriors or ancient legionaries while there were none before. Those big changes happen in a matter of days and because of that the world feels unreal.

Also what I would rather like to see changed is the scaling and the build of the world. The reasons you can find in my other post “200 days Battle Brothers”.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo hakimio

surely we are not the only ones that think that the first 20 days are a little bit of a chore. As much as I can tell the developers do a great job in regard to adapt the game to the wishes of to players. Therefore I am confident that something will happen, to provide a better game expierence.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo hruza

Thanks for the tip with the geists. I fought them again and clustered my company around my 130 resolve sergeant and did easily beat 4 of them and their wiederganger’s.

Right now my current company is at day 70 and looks alright. There are 4 brothers in 240+ armour, 4 brothers in 140+ armour and 4 brothers that are skilled in dodge and nimble. The company has 2 archers with overwhelm and crippling strikes to debuff enemies, 3 heavy guys with greatswords , 1 duelist and 8 front row shield brothers. Contracts about 2000 crowns are doable without risking casualties. After the first 20 days the game became immensely fun again :)

Surprisingly there was a message that popped up that said the war between the noble houses has started. Day 70 seems a bit early for me. What triggers the start of a crisis? Is it just the estimation of the company or is there something else?
I did try to tackle the crisis in a separate save. Almost got crushed in the first mission, which culminated in a major battle.

Okay, so the difficulty is a bit unpredictable. That’s alright. It is kind of like real mercenary bands might have felt. Most of the time you had your routine, but sometimes things differ. Most of the time the difficulty is about right and keeps me on my toes. Sometimes though there are some weird difficulty spikes that take the fun away. Like that great battle.

Good to know that the AI always attacks the weakest group. Maybe that is the reason why the first 20 days tend to be such a chore and after that it is alright.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo Valiant,

if you are locked in at steam you can buy the supporter edition bundle, without paying the parts you already have. In your case you have only to pay the lore book, fangshire helm and the soundtrack and not the game. The lore book is not available for single purchase, to my best knowledge.

If you have the money by all means buy it. The soundtrack alone is worth it, because it is freaking awesome! I don’t know how often I heard ‘Warpath Ceremony’ or ‘Thug Life’ without actually playing the game. Have fun!

Grüße von der Ostseeküste,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo devs

+1 also from me

I don’t know how often I did fight the first battle, only to restart instantly after, because I didn’t like the map. It is kind of a chore, if you try around 20 maps before finding one that seems good for a playthrough. It would be quite nice to be able to check the map and the brothers before having to fight.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo hruza

I think it is possible that direwolfs are allied to raiders. Otherwise it would be weird of them to pursue me on the world map without engaging each other. They were on almost the some spot, but they thought ‘no lets not fight each other better follow this mercenary band, that is stronger than each of us alone’.

I will try to lure enemy’s to bases in the future and report back the results.

My sergeant has fearless, the sergeant sash, the standard and relatively high resolve. This concludes in a resolve around 104. The brothers that instantly fled were 4 and 5 fields away from my sergeant. They were a bit away but by no means spread out.
The undead necklace was the reason I tried to raid the place. At this point I had only 2 undead lairs raided and needed still another 2. Now 15 days later 1 is still missing, because all undead lairs that spawned anew have necroservants inside. Fighting even 8 of them, that are in the smallest base, will inflict at least 2 or 3 casualties on my side. So I pass and hope that a lair without necroservants will spawn.
The dedicated geist killer is a good tip! I will try this the next time I when I fight them.

Right know I am at day 50 and all my brothers have 100+ body armour and 140 head armour. For weapons there are a lot T2 weapons, a standard and ancient bladed pike. Know the game is fun again! I can take contracts that pay 1200 gold without losing a single brother.

I don’t get the skull rating of mission’s. At first I got a one skull contract to raid a goblin base. I got 10 wolfriders. Was doable enough and paid around 1000 gold. A few days later I got a quest to protect a village that had 2 skulls and paid 1200 gold. I had to fight 2 marksman and 8 raiders. This was about as equally difficult as the ´goblin contract before. Why the difference in the skulls?

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo general_jah

If an enemy is positioned behind another enemy than your ranged fighter will get a penalty to hit, if he tries to shot the guy in the backrow. Bullseye reduces said penalty and therefore makes it easier for your ranged fighters to snipe the opposing backrow. Should you plan to use your ranged fighters to counter other ranged fighters this perk can be very useful. I think it is a solid pick for every dedicated crossbow or archer build. Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo Namespace and loci

To know when and how I can dagger raiders for their armor seems to be a reasonable thing to learn as the next step. My problem is that I most of the times don’t get the timing right. Those raiders either flee and get hit while trying to do so and therefore lose their armor or could hurt my brothers still and because of that the risk is to big to try. I tend to wait to long to attempt the dagger kill. Way easier are wiedergänger in that regard. Those guys don’t flee and also attack just once per round. Most of my mail right now I got from them.

Thugs indeed show from time to time in the first 20 days. I am always happy when I see a group of thugs with just a few raiders. Sometimes I can steel the armor of the raider, which is quite a happy coincidence. But this occasions are seldom for more most of the time the bands that I have met in the first 20 days consisted of at least a few raiders with poacher or a marksman and a few few thugs or just raiders. Once I saw a band of 5 necrosavants at around day 15. Luckuily I could run away from them. I always use my mouse to hover over them to know what troops they actually have. But thanks for the tip! This could have been a huge help, if I didn’t have done so already.

Currently I still roam the lands with the band of brothers which I described in my last post. Now we are on day 40 and I lost one brother, but still gained so much in this battle that is was totally worth it. But once I had to reload because of geists showing in one ancient ruin that I was trying to raid. Those to geists just screamed once and three of my brothers failed every possible morale check. They started to run away instandly. My right flank was in shambles. Even my sergeant with more than 100 resolve and a battle standard couldn’t rally them. I tried again after reloading. In this case the geists split up. This was way easier! Nobody ran and I could easily consolidate my brothers through rally the troops and killing wiedergänger. But whatever I should learn through this battle I don’t get it. I did nothing different in the second try. I just got lucky that the geists decided to split up. Well maybe enlightenment comes later.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo Alkador

The addition of a difficulty between beginner and veteran is a great idea! I also struggle a bit to hack it on veteran. The jump from beginner to veteran felt too step for me. So I second your suggestion!

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo again

It is nice to know that the game scales somewhat slower, if the company develops slower. Maybe I have a chance after all.

I’m back to report on my latest run’s. In my first run I did a little bit better than before. On day 10 I had 11 guys in ~50 body armour and ~40 head armour with 700 crowns to spare It is not great, but it is better than before. Sadly there were a band of undead with a necromancer, a band of raiders and some werwolfs that joined forces to encircle me from all sides on the worldmap. They forced me into battle. In this battle the direwolfs stalled me till the undead could gave me the rest.

On the second try I decided to play veteran without ironman. Ironically in this playthrough things look bright without reloading even once. I might not have everybody in mailshirts, but some of my guys have them. The rest of the band has 65+ bodyarmour and 40+ headarmour. Also with a bladed pike, a standart, a crossbow and two hooked blades in the hand of brothers with 65+ skill at level 4 my backrow is solid. I had also no loses, which is more than I hoped for.

There is only one thing that annoyed me a bit. The game spawns tons upon tons of groups of enemies that are way stronger than my guys. Therefor half the time at the first 20 days I spend with running away. In those 20 days I had to run away from 8 bands of raiders, 1 band of undead with a necromancer and a band of goblins, that followed me 2 days straight! If a settlement is near I go there and look if there are guys that can help with those pesky raiders. Once there were and I got some loot from that fight. Two other bands of raiders I took down without help. Still the amount of running away from enemies seems a bit too much. Maybe it is my map or just bad luck. Is it similar on other maps?

One question: Are werwolfs, raiders and the undead allied? I know this is a weird question but once I had a band of werwolfs follow me and also a band of raiders. They didn’t start fighting each other on the world map, although they easily could do so. In another fight there were 4 ancient auxiliaries and 8 raiders. Even though I ran instantly away from the raiders they did go after my brothers instead of the skeletons.

Thanks for all the help! I think I can do it now :)

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo hruza and Namespace

Before I thought I did quite good economically but after reading your posts I have now a new point of reference. At day 20 I certainly was not even close to everybody wearing a mail shirt. I had a few padded armors and some gamebesons. So now that I know what should be the standard at day 20 I have to admit I had big economical problems!

The map seed I am currently play is 7b591d. The starting brothers have nice perks and in the south there are awesome trading opportunity’s. Around a city, that pay’s good money for salt, wood and dye there are villages that produce all these things. It also has not to much mountains, swamps or water, just one solid landmass, just how I like it.
Map seed 9840c3 does look nice. Many trading opportunities and there is not a cluster of settlements you have to stay close to all the time. It is nicely balanced and spread out. Still I like 7b591d a little bit more and think I will make do with it. But thanks for the seed! Maybe I will try it in the future.

If I ever come I across skeletons again, which is very likely, I will be way more careful. Thanks for letting me know that this was indeed a difficult battle I should avoid in the future! From beginner I got the wrong impression that those auxiliaries are kind of the thugs of the undead faction. But man was I wrong. Before I was only discouraged by legionaries but now I know better. Nice to know that I can just grab the artifact and run. I will certainly do that the next time and be true to my new mercenary motto: If you don’t get paid to fight or win for sure you leg it!

Maybe I did not give the attention that was needed to details as injuries and double grip, while in battle. I will try to be more cautious in that regard. Waiting to manipulate the turn order I do all the time. It is just to rewarding to not to do it. On some video’s on twitch and youtube I saw some of the players to go to almost excessive amount of planning and rethinking every turn. While this is certainly kind of amazing in it’s own right I hope this is not necessary all time. In close fights or crucial rounds I wouldn’t mind to do so. Bit if it is all the time the game would be quite a drag for me. Guess I just have to try and see for myself.

I will be back and report after I had time to play tomorrow.

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo Namespace

I don’t think that my problems are only of economical nature. Sure it is always nice to have more crowns, but I never run so low that I have real problems. I repair goods before selling them and also do a lot of trading with goods and seldom with food. Most of the time I do okay or even good until one contract goes south and I get either whipped or left so weak that I have almost no chance to recover. Most of the time it happened if I misjudge how strong the enemy is, like in case of the ancient auxiliaries and the hedge knight or I got ambushed and have no way to run. Otherwise I do okay. In one playthrough on veteran I got to day 60 and still did okay. This was just lucky I guess.

When I get that crucial underdog perk the game becomes suddenly way easier. Then I can bind several enemies to fewer guys and shield wall them while surrounding and killing of the rest. But this strategy does not work without underdog. I will check out some other players at twitch. Didn’t know about that before, thanks for the information! Maybe I can get some new helpful ideas how to tackle the game. On the bright side it can not get much worse than right now XD

Well maybe splitting two shields while not being able to kill them instantly was the mistake. Thanks for the insight! The flails I used on those without a helmet, otherwise I didn’t go for the head. So I did alright on that front.

Playing without ironman seems to be the only option short of returning to beginner. So I will try that.

Actually after reading guides, those tips and attempting to get better I am under the impression that I just don’t share the vision of fun with the developers. Like this loosing is fun thing. For me it isn’t exactly fun in itself. It can be fun when I learn enough through it to actually win in the next couple of tries. How many tries did you guys need until could do it?

I know myself good enough to guess that I have maybe 20 tries left until I become so frustrated that I drop the game completely. Therefore before trying again I will check out how other players do it and hopefully come back stronger!

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo hruza,

I just saw right now, that there is a second page on which your advice regarding challenges is located.
The first challenge I always pick is befriend a settlement. After that comes either hire 12 brothers or get 2000 crowns for a standard. Later on I do the sergeant quest, because a sergeant is needed in the band anyway. Increased inventory space is also nice after the first challenges. The trophy challenges I did do rather late, at least I did in my beginner playthrough. But it is nice to know that I did not to much wrong in this section of the game.

Maybe I just have to start a beginner run again to try out all those tips. As it stands now I just get horribly beaten on veteran despite changed approaches and okay tactics. (At least my tactic looks okay when I compare it to the playthroughs I have watched on youtube.)

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Hallo again

In last days I had a few hours and tried to use some of the tips. Thanks hruza for your in deept description of your way of playing. My problem is I had three games and never made it past day 20. So 200+ armor or even buying a falcon is something I don’t even get close to. Still I tried some of your first tips. At first I had 6 brothers against Hogard the Weasel and was able to get his armor. After that I hired 2 additional brothers. Now in the current attempt I am at day 12 and had no loses so far. Also with 1000 crowns, 40 tools, 25 medical supplies and 8 brothers in 50+ bodyarmor and 40+ headarmer things don’t look so bad. In this case I will go without meatshilds and with a quality approach. Hopefully it will work.

In the fist try I got ambushed by direwolfs in the middle of the night in some woods at day 7. I had no chance to position my brothers and because of the movement penalty and the initially disastrous positioning the direwolfs killed my ranged fighter in turn 2 and after that two other fighters. The rest did think that running away was a good idea and got slaughtered. While going through the woods I looked cautiously, but still the direwolfs attacked me before I could react. Well maybe this was just bad luck.

In the second attempt I did pretty well at first. Did not lose a single brother in the first 20 days. I also tried to have hire new brothers with cheep backgrounds when I had the armor and weapons for them at hand. What I realized is that the game seems overly punishing while scaling the difficulty up when hiring new guys. With 6 guys I did fine. With 8 guys I did okay. But after that … I took a contract to recover an artifact and kill some ancient auxiliary in the process. It should pay 420 crowns. I did quests in this prize range before without to much trouble. But those skeletons whipped me totally. I used flails to go for the head, used axes to break shields, had the 3 guys with the best melee skill in the backrow with hooked blades and pitchforks. The frontline did shield wall them while the backrow tried to cause havoc. Well that did not work out at all!

What I learned from those tries:
1. The combination of axes and shields for weak frontline brothers and polearms for more skilled brothers in the backrow works nicely! This tip helped me a great deal!
2. The quantity approach did not work for me. The scaling up of the difficulty for hiring new brothers made the game more difficult than with fewer brothers. Those extra brother could not nearly negate the rise in difficulty that occurred.
3. Most of the time I do alright and my tactics work. There seem to be just some contracts that screw you over completely, with no option to know which those are. Maybe it is just experience. Like those delivery contracts where enemy mercenary bands are showing up past day 30. I did really think I could take those 10 skeletons with my 9 brothers easily and got whipped. But I do not know if I have enough tolerance in me to get through those vast amount of frustration until I have acquired that experience. I just wish there where more informations like when hiring guys what background give which bonuses or a way to more reliable estimate the difficulty before tacking a contract, neither the crowns nor the skulls help much in that regard.
4. There are indeed missions at the start with thugs only. I just got unlucky in my last attempts. So I take back what I said about there being no thugs. I still think it is rather harsh that the games only spawns roaming bands of raiders and not also thugs. Never seen a roaming band of thugs in veteran. Because of that the first 20+ days consist of a lot of running away on the world map for me.

Sorry for all the whining, but I am really feed up right now!

Best regards,
Taito

[Taito]

Forgot one thing: most of the inspiration for my buidls I got from the steamuser calmnesss13 and his “Battle Brothers Perk Guide”. Just to give credit where credit is due.

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