[suggestion] Clearly unbalanced enemies

[Danubian]

I only ever ran into a single 7000 fort i could beat, and mostly because it had very few heavily armored orcs (i think only 4 in fact), it was “Puny”. Those forts that say Deadly or Impossible i dont think i could survive without 300+ armors on all brothers.

Also is it just me or are bows pretty much useless on Skeletons and Orc Warriors? I seem to do only like 3-5% of HP damage even on Skeletons without any armor, and when i hit Orc Warriors i only seem to do like 3 pixels worth of armor damage, its so little it almost makes me wanna cry.

[Sekata]

The thing battle brothers lacks is transparency more than anything else. An even band of orcs will be a lot worse than an even band of bandits. At most the label is wrong, but the balance is fine.

1. Orcs are supposed to be physically stronger than humans. Orc young will hit harder than a normal battle brother, and an orc berserker can pretty easily kill all but the most prepared of your brothers. As a trade off, berserkers don’t wear armor, and are pretty easily to riddle with arrows before they close distance. Learn the strengths of your targets.

2. As for goblins, the solution has already been mentioned in this post. If you go after the little buggers at night time with one or two war dogs in tow, the fights can be ridiculously easy, especially with kite shields.

If anything battle brothers needs a manual filled with tips about enemies and strategies. For the most part, there is a strategy for dealing with most enemies in the game pretty easily if you know their strengths and weaknesses. The part that I find most brutal is the ambush system, where the game spawns an insane amount of enemy bands around your company to keep you from getting to an objective. Other than that, the game is pretty balanced. The superior physical nature of the orcs and the skirmish tactics of the goblins is what makes the factions distinct. Changing the composition too much would water down the experience and make certain encounters far too easy. Take some time to learn more about the game. I had the same complaints you did before I learned how to play.

As for the skeletons and the orc warriors, weapons have different stats that make them better or worse against certain enemy types. Skeletons don’t have vitals, and so arrows don’t do a whole lot of damage. Use smashing weapons. As for the orc warriors, use crossbows (which have a higher armor penetration stat) and weapons that crush armor. Most of your complaints come from a gap in knowledge. There’s a lot to learn in BB, and no way to learn it but trial and error.

[Danubian]

Sekata wrote:

The thing battle brothers lacks is transparency more than anything else. An even band of orcs will be a lot worse than an even band of bandits. At most the label is wrong, but the balance is fine.

No what the game lacks is balance.

It needs more gradual transformation of enemies within each faction.

Sekata wrote:

1. Orcs are supposed to be physically stronger than humans. Orc young will hit harder than a normal battle brother, and an orc berserker can pretty easily kill all but the most prepared of your brothers. As a trade off, berserkers don’t wear armor, and are pretty easily to riddle with arrows before they close distance. Learn the strengths of your targets.

Orcs can be made physically stronger than humans AND still not be able to 2 hit kill a heavily armored brother. Is that too difficult to do? Because im fairly certain its not. For example they could rebalance the armors or weapon stats so that armors play a bigger role and actually provide something to the player. You know its not really that outlandish to ask the developers to make armors do what armors are supposed to do: keep people alive. If i spend 10 hours leveling up and equipping my brothers with best items in game, i expect them to obtain a bit more survivability than they used to have at level 1 with 30 armor.

Im in a fight against about 15 Orcs. About half are Orc Warriors and about half are Berserkers. I have 3 archers. So how am i supposed to get rid of Berserkers before they close in? I can take out 2, 3, maybe 4 if im lucky. If i make half of my team archers, i might pick off Berserkers, but then Orc Warriors will slaugher me. Even with crossbows you can stop them at range in large battles. You will have to take them on in melee.

In any case if you have to make such drastic decisions just to beat a single opponent – thats usually an indications that something is out of balance.

There are many different ways to make Orcs unique, without making them overpowering at the same time. Look at those undead zombie thingies. Those fights are brilliantly fun and entertaining, nobody is complaining about those. Or bandits.

Sekata wrote:

2. As for goblins, the solution has already been mentioned in this post. If you go after the little buggers at night time with one or two war dogs in tow, the fights can be ridiculously easy, especially with kite shields.

Nope. The solution hasnt been mentioned because i dont think people read what the problem is. Or maybe i didnt explain it well enough. So ill try again. Unlike Orcs, that are clearly brokenly OP and out of balance, the Goblins are not OP or out of balance. The only problem with them is that they are tedious, annoying and boring to fight. First of all just for the record lets differentiate some things. Goblin parties consist out of melee fighters and Ambushers. Melee fighters are unique and do their own thing (throw nets and bola thingies) and i have no problems with them, fighting them is a straightforward process thats fun. The problem are Ambushers and their hit and run tactics. And not so much their damage or their brutal strength – because in both cases they are just meh – but because they have a tendency to run around. This running around is forcing me to chase them around the map, and that part is BORING. I will spend 2x more time just moving around the map trying to catch them than i do fighting their melee fighters. And thats a problem. Youre making me waste my time. Its neither challenging nor fun its just tedious. And yes, i do have and use dogs. And no dogs are not a magical solution for goblins. If you release dogs before melee fighters are dead, since dogs are very smart they will just run straight into them and get slaughtered. And if you release dogs after melee fighters are dead, Ambushers will already have started to fall back and that means probably between 5 and 10 additional turns of chasing after them. Sure you think “wow theyre smart” first time you see their tactic. Sure youre amused first 5 times chasing after them. But after 10 times it just becomes repetitious and boring. A simple waste of time that doesnt add to the “fun” factor of playing a game.

Sekata wrote:

If anything battle brothers needs a manual filled with tips about enemies and strategies. For the most part, there is a strategy for dealing with most enemies in the game pretty easily if you know their strengths and weaknesses. The part that I find most brutal is the ambush system, where the game spawns an insane amount of enemy bands around your company to keep you from getting to an objective.

Diversity is fun, having to change your entire team just to be able to survive a single enemy type is not fun (specially when youre a higher level). Its another indication that something is out of balance.

Sekata wrote:

Other than that, the game is pretty balanced. The superior physical nature of the orcs and the skirmish tactics of the goblins is what makes the factions distinct. Changing the composition too much would water down the experience and make certain encounters far too easy.

The current abilities Orcs have dont make them distinct, it makes them stupidly OP.
The current tactics Goblins use dont make them distinct, it makes fighting them a needless effort of micromanagement and an utter unfun waste of time.

Sekata wrote:

Take some time to learn more about the game. I had the same complaints you did before I learned how to play.

I have pretty much figured out how to play the game – after 3 level 10 parties. The difference between you and i, is that you simply accepted poorly balanced things, got yourself familiarized with them and youre comfortable with the way things are. Whereas i wish to have them improved and dont want to simply settle for how things are because i know they could be done in a better and more fun way.

Ill give you an example.

You will repeat again that Orcs are physically stronger than humans, and i will tell you that this is poor game design/complete lack of balance. Just in case i will explain what that screenshot shows. Thats one Young Orc destroying 2 shields with a single hit in a single game turn on easiest difficulty level. There is no RPG game where you will see that. But at the same time i dont wish to take that away from you, if thats how you want to play BB. Just use the highest difficulty setting and have fun.

Sekata wrote:

As for the skeletons and the orc warriors, weapons have different stats that make them better or worse against certain enemy types. Skeletons don’t have vitals, and so arrows don’t do a whole lot of damage. Use smashing weapons.

Sure, i figured that arrows are only partly good against skelies (you can still kill their armor and pick off necromancers, they die in like 2 arrows which is great). Didnt have problem with any other type of weapons though, swords, morning stars etc all works just fine (also they often die in just 1 hit).

Sekata wrote:

As for the orc warriors, use crossbows (which have a higher armor penetration stat) and weapons that crush armor. Most of your complaints come from a gap in knowledge. There’s a lot to learn in BB, and no way to learn it but trial and error.

I would love to see you take on 10 Orc Warriors with 12 brothers around level 5. I cant do it at level 10 with 3 dedicated archers (who can switch between bows and crossbows). If i put more crossbows, i have fewer melees, who then get rushed and overwhelmed. Nope, we do have a balance problem. Sure make Orcs more powerful than humans, just dont make them that powerful.

[Jaffai]

Few tips for people whole are struggling against Orc Warriors.

1. Nimble
If character starts with melee def 0, = 0
Every level up put points in melee def, = 20
Holdout + inspiring presence, = 10
=30 and with nimble, = 60

With Heater shield
Character starts with melee def 0, = 0
Every level up put points in melee def, = 20
Heater shield + Shield Expert, = 25
Holdout + inspiring presence, = 10
=55 and with shieldwall +25, = 80

Problems starts with shield when orc breaks them with 2 hits.
Melee def without shield and without nimble will be 20+10=30, with 30 melee defense your brothers start dying.
If brother has nimble and his shield breaks, he will still have 60 melee defense, which is not that bad at all.

2. Indomitable
4 AP, 40 Fatigue, every other turn. Immunity to stun and knock back plus -50% dmg received for 2 turns. This skill is crucial as it prevents orc warriors to push brothers around. With indomitable you can tie down orc warriors while brothers with perfect focus do the damage with billhooks.

Melee defense is the most important stat in the game right now, put points in it every level up. Orcs hit so hard, it is better
to avoid to get hit than try to soak up damage. So it is generally good to get both shield expert and nimble for your brothers.
Try to find brothers with base melee defense around 10, with nimble that is 80 melee defense. Try to find few drunk sword masters,
go killing frenzy and nimble. These guys are broken.

[Danubian]

Im trying out a new build with 6 archers designed to murder bandits in order to level up and obtain moneyz, so that it can later become what Jaffai described above (nimble fighters designed to kill orc warriors).

[Danubian]

Crossbow vs Orc Warrior.

Maybe if i had ~20 brothers with crossbows?

Just how much body armor do they have? 400+?

[RusBear]

hehe, looks like a new game :)
regards armor orcs warriors : I honestly tried to keep track of how much damage ravine have armor. it is not always possible and some uncomfortable, but certainly more than 300. Do not forget that the to the orcs warriors armor best seen so running the new system of armor – the better (more expensive) and the newer armor – the less damage it receives, less damage itself and passes . But, to be honest, I never saw that my armored mercenaries (under 300) received 0-1 damage from enemies, but the enemies of this happens regularly. not fair :)

[Sekata]

I appreciate your point of view Danubian, and i’m glad you’ve provided both screen shots and fair critique. I understand that you want the game to feel balanced, and frankly I somewhat agree with your assessment of the goblins to some degree. However, I don’t really share your hatred of the orcs, or your opinion that massive balance changes on the orcs need to occur. Granted, as a matter of full disclosure, I would not, under any circumstances run into a battle against 10 orc warriors. If I saw that coming at me, I would laugh hysterically, and “nope” right on in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t have the game any other way frankly.

The game world is one where your mercenary band of mortal human fighters are battling against incredible odds. Losing soldiers is a part of the game, which is why there is a loading tip that clearly states “expect to lose some men”, and even one that says “if the odds are against you, retreat to fight another day”. Unless you’ve got a band of fully upgraded soldiers that are specced to deal effectively with most situations, many battles rated even or above become a question of “how many soldiers will i lose”.

It’s a matter of you against insane odds, but the game does allow you to heavily swing those odds in your favor. It’s pretty easy to wait for small squads to come out of a camp, and pick them off one at a time. After a while of taking out smaller parties belonging to a single camp, the rating of the camp itself will fall, and your odds against it will improve pretty substantially. Battle Brothers as a game encourages picking battles carefully, especially early on, and that doesn’t entirely change when you’re the big bamf on the map. Frankly, I think the design is a fairly realistic approach, and I really appreciate the devs for it. Force the odds in your favor by attacking smaller squads, and if you find yourself faced with deadly, or even a fair battle, just don’t fight it. One of the most hilarious points from the Art of War says don’t fight battles you aren’t sure you can win, or “don’t fight fair battles”. It’s a waste of resources and soldiers if it can be avoided. This game forces you to keep that in mind, and i’m not sure that it’s unintentional on part of the devs.

As for fights, deny your enemies the high ground. Shield bash them away from high positions and take the ground for yourself. I kind of doubt that the orc in that screenshot had the ap to both move to his position on the high ground and then break both of your shields. It’s one orc young, but his location puts both of your brothers in that shot in a pretty awful position. I would be curious to know how he got into that position in the first place. Was it unavoidable? Did your character’s have deflect? How about heater shields?

Train up your archers before fighting tougher bands of orcs. A single archer with focus can very easily waste an incoming berserker, or at the least, nerf his damage if you happen to have the debilitate perk. As for the crossbows, damage can be strongly hit or miss. Some crossbow shots will yield a disappointing amount of damage. On the other side of the same coin, I’ve seen armored orcs take a sizeable chunk of health damage from a single crossbow shot. I’ve also seen crossbow headshots outright kill orc warriors that had most of their health left. You aren’t going to see the full range of the crossbow’s capability in a single battle waged to get a single screenshot. For that matter, what level was your archer in that shot? To be fair, a low damage shot can even happen to level 11 brothers, but i would still like to know.

In a battle where there are no berserkers, then you should prioritize by weapon type. The orc that destroyed your shields had an axe, and he should be one of the first enemies that you take out of the fight for exactly that reason.

Between the weapon, shield, and perk variations, there is a pretty nice variety of ways to plan for battles with orcs. In a very serious way, single battles are won in bb before the fight even starts. I’ll concede your goblin issue. It’s absolutely 0 fun chasing enemies around the map, especially since dogs aren’t all that intelligent, and don’t run for the archer units if there are melee units nearby. Other than that though, I very much like the game as it is. It’s not that I’ve come to accept broken design as you’ve implied. That statement assumes quite a bit about willingness on my part to put up with bullshi*t and that’s just not the case. We don’t know each other, so don’t assume that i’m prone to rolling over for bad design choices just because I disagree with you about something. There are plenty of things that I would very much like changed in BB, but orc balance is not one of them. I just think that the difficulty of the orcs, and the necessity of using every single advantage that the player has to come out on top is an intended part of the game’s fabric. I could be wrong, and I’ll concede that immediately if the devs decide to correct me.

I do think that the fatigue of orc warriors can be toned down a bit. Pushing aside your units while wearing all of that heavy armor should be a bit more costly than it is for them at the moment, but that’s about it. To be fair, I may well have tunnel vision. I’ve put more than 120 hours into the game and perhaps (JUST MAYBE) i’ve grown tolerant of some questionable things. I’ll admit that much. The fact that I’m perfectly willing to call BS on pretty much all of the spawning system, location diversity, and the frequency of bandidt marksmen spawning with crossbows, tells me that i might not have complete olfactory fatigue on bullsh*t. The orcs are the only remaining challenge after you get decent equipment and five brothers to level 11. I’d like them to remain that way.

[Meeky]

I’ll add my own two cents on the fighting ten orc warriors issue: that’s the sort of thing I do toward the late game. Toward the mid game, I prefer to only do that if I can get villagers or patrols to help me out, and usually that means “The village is under attack so I’d better risk defending it.” Heavily defended orc camps are definitely a late-game threat.

It’s pretty easy to wait for small squads to come out of a camp, and pick them off one at a time. After a while of taking out smaller parties belonging to a single camp, the rating of the camp itself will fall, and your odds against it will improve pretty substantially.

This is good advice. I’ve done this quite a bit.

The orcs are the only remaining challenge after you get decent equipment and five brothers to level 11. I’d like them to remain that way.

Basically, this point is also my opinion. Besides vampires, orcs are the only threat that’s really DEADLY late game. If they were suddenly made weaker, I’d feel cheated, honestly. They SHOULD be tough. They SHOULD be really dangerous. I SHOULD lose Battle Brothers fighting them.

As for fights, deny your enemies the high ground. Shield bash them away from high positions and take the ground for yourself.

A note of caution, though: in my experience, you can’t shield bash orc warriors off of high ground. I’ve tried it extensively and it never seems to work. I think they’re just too darned heavy to shove around. Young orcs and I think berserkers are a different story.

[Sekata]

A note of caution, though: in my experience, you can’t shield bash orc warriors off of high ground. I’ve tried it extensively and it never seems to work. I think they’re just too darned heavy to shove around. Young orcs and I think berserkers are a different story.

Absolutely right, I didn’t clarify that at all. Thanks Meeky :D. Best you can do with warriors is use indomitable and protect your backlines.

[Danubian]

Stupid forum decided to log me out as i was posting reply, so 20 mins of typing went poof. Wonderful.

Sekata wrote:

I appreciate your point of view Danubian, and i’m glad you’ve provided both screen shots and fair critique. I understand that you want the game to feel balanced, and frankly I somewhat agree with your assessment of the goblins to some degree. However, I don’t really share your hatred of the orcs, or your opinion that massive balance changes on the orcs need to occur. Granted, as a matter of full disclosure, I would not, under any circumstances run into a battle against 10 orc warriors. If I saw that coming at me, I would laugh hysterically, and “nope” right on in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t have the game any other way frankly.
The game world is one where your mercenary band of mortal human fighters are battling against incredible odds. Losing soldiers is a part of the game, which is why there is a loading tip that clearly states “expect to lose some men”, and even one that says “if the odds are against you, retreat to fight another day”. Unless you’ve got a band of fully upgraded soldiers that are specced to deal effectively with most situations, many battles rated even or above become a question of “how many soldiers will i lose”.

Game designs that centers around ROLE PLAYING characters, which means getting player (emotionally) invested and also spending time improving these characters (experience and equipment) sort of doesnt work well with the concept that you are supposed to lose these characters all the time.

The in game warning about being ready to lose them is fine. At first when you start the game and have no equipment or experience. Obtaining experience and best possible attainable equipment (non unique obviously) and losing brothers just because is a horrible game design (specially in an RPG). And i really hope thats not the BB devs design philosophy. And for one simple reason. Im sure that there are people who would LOVE to play BB under such balance rules that any enemy in game can 1 hit kill your brothers. But those players are very few, a niche within a niche. So catering to tastes of maybe 2 out 100 people is a very bad idea, specially if it turns away those 98 people entirely. In other words i dont want to take anything away from you. You like the game as it is, i say fine. Thats what you have highest difficulty level setting for. Im arguing about easiest difficulty setting which should provide a more casual gameplay experience.
Im willing to bet you that 98/100 players will quit battle and reload autosave upon losing a fully equipped level 8+ brother in a battle. I do it. Every single time. Losing them just isnt satisfying or fun.

Sekata wrote:

It’s a matter of you against insane odds, but the game does allow you to heavily swing those odds in your favor. It’s pretty easy to wait for small squads to come out of a camp, and pick them off one at a time. After a while of taking out smaller parties belonging to a single camp, the rating of the camp itself will fall, and your odds against it will improve pretty substantially. Battle Brothers as a game encourages picking battles carefully, especially early on, and that doesn’t entirely change when you’re the big bamf on the map. Frankly, I think the design is a fairly realistic approach, and I really appreciate the devs for it. Force the odds in your favor by attacking smaller squads, and if you find yourself faced with deadly, or even a fair battle, just don’t fight it. One of the most hilarious points from the Art of War says don’t fight battles you aren’t sure you can win, or “don’t fight fair battles”. It’s a waste of resources and soldiers if it can be avoided. This game forces you to keep that in mind, and i’m not sure that it’s unintentional on part of the devs.

I agree completely with you. Thats part of the BB charm. Its just the way things are set right now, it tends to be brutally difficult. Setting up certain characters in certain ways does not give you a role playing advantage, it is absolutely necessary to survive. And that is a balancing problem. Game can be made interesting and challenging without every decision being a 1 or 0 situation where one is survival and other is doom. Again im all for giving people challenge if thats what they want. Thats what difficulty settings are for.

Sekata wrote:

As for fights, deny your enemies the high ground. Shield bash them away from high positions and take the ground for yourself. I kind of doubt that the orc in that screenshot had the ap to both move to his position on the high ground and then break both of your shields. It’s one orc young, but his location puts both of your brothers in that shot in a pretty awful position. I would be curious to know how he got into that position in the first place. Was it unavoidable? Did your character’s have deflect? How about heater shields?

The orc on the hill moved there in the first turn. I was forced with two choices. Getting right next to it, and pushing it away the next turn. Or getting 1 field away from it, and then getting charged and stunned for 1 turn. I opted for first choice. Since it played before me (iirc) it got to attack me the next turn before i could push it away. Under normal circumstances that wouldnt be any problem because i would just take that damage and push it away.
Of course the point here is not a tactical analysis of that battle (whether it had the high ground or not).

The problem is the fact that it managed to kill 2 shields in 1 turn.

^ that is a balancing problem as it destroys the whole purpose of a shield. (btw i have had a unique named shield also destroyed by an Orc in a single hit before)

Sekata wrote:

Train up your archers before fighting tougher bands of orcs. A single archer with focus can very easily waste an incoming berserker, or at the least, nerf his damage if you happen to have the debilitate perk. As for the crossbows, damage can be strongly hit or miss. Some crossbow shots will yield a disappointing amount of damage. On the other side of the same coin, I’ve seen armored orcs take a sizeable chunk of health damage from a single crossbow shot. I’ve also seen crossbow headshots outright kill orc warriors that had most of their health left. You aren’t going to see the full range of the crossbow’s capability in a single battle waged to get a single screenshot. For that matter, what level was your archer in that shot? To be fair, a low damage shot can even happen to level 11 brothers, but i would still like to know.

This is what i do.

My archer in that screenshot was around level 3-4 with more than 60 archery (i save game/reloaded when i started that game until i picked up characters with properties i wanted).

Note that at level 11 they dont do any different damages with crossbows. In fact i would argue that bows are much better than crossbows as now with ~75 archery skill they tend to hit almost always twice. And crossbow really mostly does that amount of damage. Unless it scores a head shot? Which any other weapon can do as well?

Sekata wrote:

In a battle where there are no berserkers, then you should prioritize by weapon type. The orc that destroyed your shields had an axe, and he should be one of the first enemies that you take out of the fight for exactly that reason.

Prioritizing weapons is fine. An Orc destroying 2 shields with 1 hit each is not fine. Thats stupidly broken/out of balance.

Sekata wrote:

Between the weapon, shield, and perk variations, there is a pretty nice variety of ways to plan for battles with orcs. In a very serious way, single battles are won in bb before the fight even starts. I’ll concede your goblin issue. It’s absolutely 0 fun chasing enemies around the map, especially since dogs aren’t all that intelligent, and don’t run for the archer units if there are melee units nearby. Other than that though, I very much like the game as it is. It’s not that I’ve come to accept broken design as you’ve implied. That statement assumes quite a bit about willingness on my part to put up with bullshi*t and that’s just not the case. We don’t know each other, so don’t assume that i’m prone to rolling over for bad design choices just because I disagree with you about something. There are plenty of things that I would very much like changed in BB, but orc balance is not one of them. I just think that the difficulty of the orcs, and the necessity of using every single advantage that the player has to come out on top is an intended part of the game’s fabric. I could be wrong, and I’ll concede that immediately if the devs decide to correct me.

As they are right now, beating Orc Warriors doesnt require planning or strategy. It requires you to start the game, save game/reload until you are able to recruit absolutely optimal set up of brothers, level them up to around level 10, equip them with 200 body and 200 helmet armor, get the best weapons, and even then you can beat them only if there are no more than 10 of them. I will admit that 68 hours into the game i have no clue how i would beat more than 10 Orc Warriors (im not even 100% sure i could beat 10 with my current level 11 group).

Orc Warriors need to:

a.) be nerfed
b.) implemented differently
c.) redesigned

a.) = pretty straight forward process. Pick one attribute, and focus on it. If they are supposed to be tough to kill, then nerf their damage, remove their mobility and so on. So in other words make them excel in one thing, and then suck at everything else.

b.) = instead of them showing up en masse in some groups and in some on map camps, have them appear only in the absolutely end game content encounters. Also limit their numbers in map roaming encounters to no more than a couple (fighting 3+ of them at like level 5 is impossible). Also groups that have them should not be “puny”. They are the most powerful enemy in game?

c.) = take the entire Orc faction, and introduce new Orc units and new Orc weapons. Each Orc unit would be a gradual improvement over the last one. And they would also get gradually better and better weapons. What this would allow is for players to have variety. Various Orc groups could be comprised out of different mixes of Orc units, and this would also remove the necessity for Orc Warriors to be seen in regular on-map groups. Limit their numbers and have them appear only in most important battles on top. Note that im not saying that new Orc types should be weak or anything, im just saying give them variety and make them less powerful than Orc Warriors. Those just arent fun to fight.

Sekata wrote:

I do think that the fatigue of orc warriors can be toned down a bit. Pushing aside your units while wearing all of that heavy armor should be a bit more costly than it is for them at the moment, but that’s about it. To be fair, I may well have tunnel vision. I’ve put more than 120 hours into the game and perhaps (JUST MAYBE) i’ve grown tolerant of some questionable things. I’ll admit that much. The fact that I’m perfectly willing to call BS on pretty much all of the spawning system, location diversity, and the frequency of bandidt marksmen spawning with crossbows, tells me that i might not have complete olfactory fatigue on bullsh*t. The orcs are the only remaining challenge after you get decent equipment and five brothers to level 11. I’d like them to remain that way.

After having spent 2 days fighting Orcs Warriors i can tell you this much.

The only thing that stopping them from being Brutally overpowered (opposed to just OP) is their fatigue. Their armors and weapons tend to fill up their max fatigue after about 4 or 5 rounds, so the more they walk, the better. With nimble melee build *IF* my melee fighters manage not to get brutalized during first ~3 melee rounds in a fight VS Orc Warriors, Orc Warriors will usually max out fatigue, and from there on they will *mostly* have only enough fatigue to attack once / turn. And thats great because they tend to spend about 1/3 of their moves pushing my bros (more they push less they can attack), 1/3 using the shield defense thingie (specially if surrounded) and only 1/3 attacking (dealing damage).
The biggest problem i have is when there is so many of them (usually 6+) that i cant face each one with more than 2 brothers. Thats where it gets tricky to beat them & survive.

[Meeky]

Game can be made interesting and challenging without every decision being a 1 or 0 situation where one is survival and other is doom.

I’d like to take a moment to discuss this, as I think it’s important: there ARE multiple ways to play the game. It’s not just a 1 or 0 situation.

While there are some perks which presently just outclass others, I still see variation in how people build their armies and how people build their characters. For instance, I only touch the defense tree if I’m making a Nimble tank. I’ve played games where my army was archer-heavy, where my army was shield-heavy, and where my army was two-hander heavy. Frankly, all three playstyles were viable, though I had the most fun in the game where roughly half my troops wielded two-handed weapons and had Quick Hands.

Not every decision is a 1 or 0 situation. Oftentimes there are drawbacks and benefits to a lot of decisions, but there are also some plainly bad decisions available as well.

Look on a preparation level first. People build their characters and armies in very different ways, as I’ve said. Yet most people I talk to have seen the end game and wound up with cadres of level 11 soldiers despite these different playstyles. So, on a preparation level, you’re not damned for not having a perfect build. You might be damned, however, for maxing Initiative / Melee Attack / Ranged Attack on a guy because now you’ve invested nothing in his defensive stats or his fatigue (which doubles as a defensive stat thanks to armor fatigue). That’s an outright bad decision. But how you build your characters can vary quite a lot without being automatically bad.

On a tactical level, you can make small “mistakes” and not lose a guy immediately. When I first fought a goblin shaman, I didn’t know how their entangling spell operated, so I marched my dudes together in a tight squad and got them all entangled. I still survived that particular fight with only one casualty because I made other decisions in that fight that made up for the bad one. Plus, there are times when there are multiple good decisions (releasing a warhound to chase an archer or moving in to fully encircle an enemy, for instance), and both will have favorable outcomes for you. You just need to decide what’s more important for you in that fight, and what risks you’re willing to take. There are definitely matters in battle that aren’t 1 or 0.

And sometimes you will face a situation where you WILL lose a Battle Brother no matter what you do. Say, for instance, that you’ve chosen to fight a battle where you have 12 level 9-11 Battle Brothers facing an army of 30 orcs largely consisting of Orc Warriors and Orc Berserkers. Doable? Hell yes, that’s doable. I’ve won that fight before. But you’re going to lose somebody unless you load the game over and over and over for a perfect ending. Through your actions, you can determine who lives in that fight. You can make sacrifices to save your most important guys. You can mitigate the enemies’ effectiveness by fighting where they’ll be standing on swampy terrain, or by using rotating your wounded troops to the back of the line.

And once again, I’d like to state that there are lots of “right” ways to play the game. I love having armies filled with greatswords and pikes rather than sword-and-board setups. The damage potential is crazy, especially when backed with a horn-blowing commander and Perfect Focus. But that doesn’t mean that shields are the wrong way to go. Shields are, in fact, way better for certain situations. it’s just a matter of preference and circumstance.

TL;DR: The only 1’s and 0’s are in the code. The game itself has lots of decisions in each circumstance that are perfectly viable ways of handling a battle.

[Danubian]

Next time you fight 30 Orc Warriors and Berserkers please take a screenshot, or better yet make a video, i would really like to see that.

And yes, sure, there are multiple ways of playing the game – if you wish to avoid fighting certain enemies / being utterly powerless against them.

Just take archers for example. Make a dedicated archer, and you got yourself a pretty useful character, until you run into Vampires and Orc Warriors. Then it becomes almost useless, and pretty much needs melee and utility skills (swapping weapons) to be of any use / have any hope of living. And although Vampires are an annoyance, they are survivable. Orc Warriors en masse are just OP.

Edit: how come for example i never see anyone complain about, say, those undead fully armored guys, Fallen Heroes i believe they are called?

[Meeky]

Next time you fight 30 Orc Warriors and Berserkers please take a screenshot, or better yet make a video, i would really like to see that.

I’ll do my best to make it a video. I only did that once, because it was a REALLY risky thing. The enemy’s army comp was something like…

9 Orc Young
6-8 Orc Berserkers
12-14 Orc Warriors
1 Orc Warlord

And it was a darned nasty fight. I actually played the battle several times to see if I could get better results (keeping the result of the first encounter as the canon one). I varied from losing 1/2 my company to losing just 2 guys. I think the first fight had me lose 3 or 4.
Doable, but DANG was it tough.

EDIT: Oh, and there were a couple rounds where I outright lost that fight. Badly.

To my advantage, though, the terrain was incredibly swampy (so I fought the orcs in places where they were at disadvantages), I had a lot of polearms, and my guys were mostly level 11 with really good gear. At that point in the game, orcs are the only challenge that really remains.

Just take archers for example. Make a dedicated archer, and you got yourself a pretty useful character, until you run into Vampires and Orc Warriors. Then it becomes almost useless, and pretty much needs melee and utility skill (swapping weapons) to be of any use / have any hope of living.

I won’t argue with that. You’re absolutely right. It’s when when I fight vampires I tend to keep a guy with a shield or a REALLY big sword + perfect focus near the back lines to protect them. Shield-bashing vampires away and then pelting them with arrows can make your archer contribute a little more. Outright killing the vampire with a big axe can be better.

I hope the devs let us have more than 12 guys, but only let us field 12 troops at a time. It would be nice to be able to, say, replace our archers with our spare pikemen when we’re fighting vampires, or to swap out wounded guys with healthy but inexperienced troops. If I could even just have 18 troops so I have 6 slots to rotate, I’d be incredibly happy.

[Meeky]

As a small note onto my last post: the point is that most solid builds are really good… except in a few circumstances. Shieldbearers aren’t so great against orcs; archers aren’t so great against vampires and skeletons; two-handed specialists are pincushions when fighting goblins. Etc. It’s all about having a good mix of troops with perks and skills that suit the role you want them to serve in your army.

[Author]

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