Meeky

[Meeky]

Berserkers hit hard but are easy to kill. They wear no armor. Focus them first if you can, because if they DO get to your frontline, it can hurt. The one in your picture is using my favorite weapon in the game, a massive two-handed axe that can reduce people to giblets. It has really high damage and high fatigue costs. It hits hard.

Remember, berserkers are SUPPOSED to hit really hard, but they’re also really easy to kill. No armor = you sometimes only need 1-2 good hits from the right weapon to take them out. Well trained soldiers forming a spearwall can actually be really strong against them, but you’ll probably have to shift your archer lines if you use that (a few will try to circle around to attack your archers).

Orc Warriors are only really a threat for a mid/late game army if there’s a bunch of them. The thing you have to do is reduce their morale (by killing the weaker orcs first – orc youngs and berserkers – and then finish the rest off.

Having trouble with orc warriors? I suggest two weapons: warhammers and pikes. Warhammers are good for making a mockery of orcish armor; a few solid hits from them will reduce it to nothing. Then you can use have your other Battle Brothers engage for the kill. Pikemen in the back row will deal high damage and won’t be in melee range, so your shield-bearing dudes can dodge a few hits, soak a few hits, or have their shields broken (which is always better than having your health bar broken).

Basically, my strategy for orcs is “kill the unarmored ones, then shred the warriors’ armor with warhammers, then murder them dead.” It works pretty well. I go in ready to lose one Battle Brothers, but that’s rare… Unless I’m actually outnumbered by the orcs. Then I’m probably gonna lose a guy or two unless I find really terrific ground to fight on. That’s to be expected in a game like this, though.

Also is it normal that an Orc can 1 shot kill the medium shield? (the one you buy at the castle, slightly smaller than kite shield)

That’s a heater shield. And that depends: what is the orc wielding? But yes, I’ve seen Orc Warriors and Orc Berserkers break shields really easily at times, especially berserkers carrying two-handed axes. If it was an orc warrior wielding a Fighting Axe or the orcish axe, I think it HAS happened to me before? But with round shields and feral shields. I normally don’t lost heater shields in one hit.

Goblins are simple to beat, pull them at nite when u they have a 50% less chance to hit, and wear shields, only a rare lucky shot will get you. If you don’t want to chase them down buy a couple wardogs.

I haven’t tried this yet, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this suggestion. Give it a shot.

Nimble in the defense tree is the best way to handle orcs, they are the end game. Invest into mdef every level, get nimble, equip warhammers/dagger, destroy orcs with ease. Only a rare hit will get in with a decent nimble build, theres a 5% to get hit regardless of your mdef atm, but with decent armor u can survive 1 hit just fine.

Nimble is a build that works for niche character backgrounds. Weapon Masters and characters that start with a high melee defense can do it. I wouldn’t suggest it for every character in your army, however.

What I do is I use a Swordmaster (or other high starting mdef character) as a “tank” against orcs. He’ll tie up 2-4 orcs at once with no problem which helps even the odds considerably. He won’t kill any, but he’ll survive. This gives the rest of my army a chance to focus fire the other orcs before rushing over to help the Nimble fellow.

I put my level up points on HP, fatigue and melee offense. What do you suggest i do instead? HP, fatigue and mdef?

It really depends on the character.

HP/Fatigue/Melee Offense is best for most characters, and all archers should be HP/Fatigue/Ranged Offense, or that’s how I build them, maybe dipping into Initiative occasionally for archers. However, you are also going to have Captains and tanks.

I like to have an army setup that’s something like this:

3-4 archers
2-3 two-handed warriors
1-2 captains
2-4 shield warriors
1-2 nimble tanks

So, for instance, a typical composition will be: 3 Archers, 3 Two-Handed Warriors, 2 Captains, 3 Shield Warriors, 1 Nimble Tank.
The Archers exist to pepper dudes with arrows lots and lots of times. I go with Perfect Focus and get the ability to refresh fatigue upon killing people from the Utility tree. Works pretty well.

The Two-Handed Warriors ALWAYS have a hard-hitting AoE melee weapon and a reach weapon, but they often have several weapons thanks to bags and belts. Typically, I’ll have a Two-Handed Sword, either a Pike or a Billhook, a Jagged Pike (the goblin pike that doesn’t use all your AP to attack) or a Warbrand for when I need mobility, and one of those awesome two-handed orcish axes for when I just need to obliterate a dude. With Quick Hands, you can always pick the right weapon for the right situation.

If I only have one Captain, he will have Rally, hands down. Rally is amazing. It gives your guys with Perfect Focus quicker recovery after they spend a whole turn expending their stamina. If I have two Captains, the second Captain has Inspiring Presence. I build Rally Captains with a focus on Resolve instead of fighting ability, and I build Inspiring Presence Captains like normal soldiers and don’t take the Captain perk.

Shield Warriors are built like typical Battle Brothers because they are the MOST typical of battle brothers. They carry a shield, fatigue/HP/Melee Offense with an occasional splash of Melee Defense, and they smack dudes in the head. If they get high enough level, they finish clearing the Offense tree and then go into the Utility tree to get Quick Hands, Bags and Belts, Pathfinding, and that one ability that reduces fatigue cost.

But then you get the Nimble Tank. This guy pumps Melee Defense at every level, and his background is usually Swordmaster. He’s sacrifices HP or Fatigue occasionally to get more Melee Offense because he needs to have a respectable chance to hit things, but his Melee Defense is ALWAYS maxed. His job is to to make a mockery of orcs once he’s max level. That’s it.

The Nimble Tank gets the Nimble perk, which is the focus of his build. He may take other traits from the defense tree, but the most important perk is the Nimble perk. He will only use a shield before he gets Nimble, and afterward will never touch a shield again, but he can have over 100 melee defense. Yes, over 100. That means enemies will only ever have a 5% chance to hit him when fighting him in melee. If you grab the fatigue-reducing perks from the utility tree (-50% armor fatigue, less weapon attack fatigue), he’ll be in a really good spot. Again, though, Nimble comes first. Always. And again, his job is to engage enemies in melee and make them scream with frustration when they can’t kill him.

Don’t let him fight goblins, however. They’ll make him a pretty pincushion real fast. Also note that getting a Nimble Tank to level 5, that crucial level he needs, can be really painful, especially if he’s a Swordmaster.

This was a long post, but this is the sort of army composition I use, and it works really well for me. 1-2 Nimble Tanks = you kick orc butt. Use Spear Walls when dealing with orc berserkers and orc young; it sometimes works against orc warriors as well IIRC. Focus fire orc warriors with warhammers, then kill ’em with hard hitting pikes and such once they’re weak. Encircle for maximum damage when you can, but NOT against berserkers wielding two-handed weapons (because they’ll butcher everyone at once). Don’t use the same stat build for every Battle Brother; change it up depending on what role they serve. This should help you a lot.

Honestly, the only foes that have given me serious trouble once my build starts rolling are goblins (in day time) and vampires (because they love to eat archers for breakfast). I might lose a guy on occasion, but by that point I can train a new guy back to max level without terribly much difficulty (because I’m fighting one-sided battles more often than before).

[Meeky]

Maybe if they allowed us to store items in towns the problem would diminish (i can always come back and sell stuff later).

That’s actually a really neat idea I didn’t think of before. A storehouse for your equipment? Makes sense. You’d probably have to rent it, but that’s not a bad idea.

[Meeky]

Arr, let me know how it goes. Also make sure your game is up to date.

I’ll do the same thing this weekend and see if I encounter the usual amount of patrols.

[Meeky]

I think the best solution would be to allow players to camp out in towns at increased speeds and get some sort of benefit for doing so – such as increased morale.

So, you get to a keep or a village or city. The store is closed because it’s night time. No matter: pay a handful of coins, get your men a room for the remainder of the night, and enjoy a small morale boost come the morning. You then go to the store the next morning because the night hours fly by quickly.

And there are some meaningful choices that come of having a night phase in which stores are closed. Namely: it pushes me to, perhaps, keep moving on to another town to resupply somewhere else. Rather than staying at this castle, I may decide to travel to the next village and see who I can hire or what jobs I can take. Sure, the equipment won’t be the same as at the location I’m presently at, but it pushes me to see the next place, check up on how other villages are faring, etc., because I’d rather know what’s going on around me rather than wait in one place. Other players may prefer to wait in one place, however.

The other way it factors in? You could be getting chased by monsters. It’s night time, your equipment is badly damaged, you run up to a keep… and they’re not going to sell you weapons and armor because it’s night time. Now you need to keep running until the undead break off to attack someone else or until you find a location that has the equipment you need.

It also becomes a factor when you’re traveling. If you decide to keep exploring one more week despite being low on food, you might find yourself needing to get supplies at the nearby town… only it’s night time. So, you’re encouraged not to overextend when exploring, but to always be well supplied with food and tools and medicine (which, later in the game, isn’t that hard to do).

Again, I think this will feel much more natural and work much better as soon as we can sleep in inns. It makes waiting not only easier, but also beneficial.

Since we as player are enemies to all enemies of human civilians (undead, bandits, orcs and wild animals) therefor castles should be friendly to us (regardless of the fact that human lords might not like mercenary bands going around). Enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Not so simple. You could be bandits in disguise. You’re a band of dudes that wanders around the countryside killing things for money. Are they sure you can be trusted?

Plus, the world is definitely steeped in medieval rhetoric. It has nobles and knights and commoners. You’re leading a ragtag bunch of commoners that get paid really well to kill people, and you don’t exactly pay much respect to the nobility and knights by doing so. Your very existence is kind of an insult to them: it means they’re not doing a good enough job protecting people, so you get paid to do their job for them.

So, you get paid better than soldiers (who hate you for that), you’re doing the work that noble leaders should be doing (so they hate you for that), you’re possibly robbers (so that’s hate-worthy too), and the typical band of Battle Brothers often includes some pariahs of society such as criminals, bastards, raiders, and hedge knights (all of whom are hated).

So, yeah: you’re fighting the same guy these guys are. But nobody really likes you, and nobody’s sure if you can be trusted. You’re not going to march into a castle at night and buy weapons. You gotta wait ’til daytime, when honest folk do business.

[Meeky]

Before that i have spent maybe 5 hours following roads between settlements and have encountered bandits only once, 2 groups, one with tough bandits and one with thugs (btw in my first game i also saw this, there was a section of the map where 3 bandit groups would hang around, i think there is possibly some bug there because they tend to stick together).

That… is really unusual. Most of my games are REALLY active and even have me struggling to keep up.

For instance, when last I played, there was a village that was located smack in the middle of a forest. It was plagued from the start by werewolves and goblins marching around the area, and the road leading from it toward the city (and the nearby citadel) was constantly under pressure from bandits and more goblins. Every time I passed by that area, there was bandit or goblin activity. I found myself playing whack-a-mole until my guys were experienced enough to take on bandit camps, and by that point orcs had dominated the more southerly regions and even established a base in the north-west (which was pretty surprising).

Not sure what to say. My games have been very active thus far. Dunno why the AI seems passive in yours.

[Meeky]

c.) create a part of interface that shows how much time i need to wait for the shop inventory to refresh
d.) allow me to place personal orders to the blacksmith “make me 6 noble swords, heres moneyz” “sure brah come back im 77 hours and they will be done” “brilliant, bye” “thank you, come again”.

I agree with this for sure. Eventually, these should both be in the game… And I think they will be, eventually. Fingers crossed.

DEFINITELY can’t wait until the day when I can order items ahead of time from a blacksmith. There’ve been so many times when I JUST wanted some pikes, and nobody was selling pikes, or I JUST wanted some extra tools, but the smithies weren’t selling any tools.

I’d also love it if you could have the blacksmith repair gear for you. Pay them, give them the gear, come back soon and get your equipment back.

Its a castle. The whole purpose of a castle IS to provide an armory 24/7. I should be able to trade with military outposts at any time during the day or night, thats military 101. Heck, i would argue that all shops should be opened 24/7, if not for reason sake, then simply for utility sake.

I’ll argue against this, though.

The purpose of a castle is to provide a bastion from which the noble that owns the place can manage the lands around him and perform his duty as protector of the people he lords over. A castle exists because it is integral to the feudal system: the serfs owe fealty to the lord, the lord owes fealty to the king, and thus the lord has to ensure that the peasants do well and pay their taxes and aren’t dying off en-masse or else he’s not performing his duty to the king. THAT is why a castle exists.

The armory is open 24/7… for the people that work at the castle. We, however, are just mercenaries. We’re scum to the noble and the people that work for him. They can sell excess gear to us at high prices, and they will, but only when it’s convenient for them. They certainly don’t want us tromping about the castle at night snatching weapons.

If we’re talking about forts instead of castles, the same argument applies. We’re still scum, and the fort is probably run by people who don’t care for our type. They don’t mind selling us things, but only in daylight when all the guards are awake and we can be watched intently. Again, a bunch of hooligans wandering the wilds looking for mercenary work aren’t the sort of people royal officials want around at night.

[Meeky]

I’d totally love to see some Viking-style helmets for characters with the Raider background, myself. Eastern European armor would be pretty great, too. I foresee that a lot of cultures could potentially have their equipment implemented eventually, actually (from Muslim weaponry to flambergs to cavalry armor), but that’s probably in the far future.
One style of helmet that’s well out of this time period but is a personal favorite of mine is the morion – that helmet used by Spanish conquistadors, largely used during the 16th and 17th centuries. The cabasset is cool too. But again, those were helmets of a different time (pike and shot), so I doubt they’ll be included.
On another note: really liking the attached location artwork idea. Will you be drawing connections between the settlements and their locations (roads, dirt paths)? Will any of those locations (like hunting lodges) appear in the forest, or in the hills or mountains (mines)? And do you know if we’ll see monasteries?

[Meeky]

Again, lets take a look at Mount & Blade. You have these places on the map, spots that spawn a pre defined number of groups belonging to a certain faction. So for example you have a faction called “looters” and they have a XY coordinates place on the map where they spawn. If there are fewer than 36 looters groups on the map, every 72 game hours a group gets spawned. Each group can also have multiple unit types all spawned randomly between numbers X and Y (you can also set minimum number of each type that is guaranteed to spawn).

There’s already a formula sort of like this:

Enemy camps will spawn onto the map from time to time, especially when you’re wiping them all out it seems. When they do, they’ll start with a finite number of resources, but will generate more resources by raiding caravans and villages and so forth. Every victory = resources for the camp. They use those resources to generate more troops which in turn get them more resources.

A big orc camp, for instance, will probably have a couple hunting parties, a large base defense, and a massive raiding party that tromps around toward villages and burns everything in sight. Each time one of those groups returns, it gives resources to the camp, and more dudes can be spawned.

Again, the system is there. You just haven’t seen it yet.

[Meeky]

What i propose is that you come up with a design, something, some point on the map, that injects enemy bands of a certain faction. Lets say bandits. I realize that they spawn in game now, but i simply cannot figure out how it works, it seems to be completely random, i go to some wasteland part of the map and i encounter random group of human bandits roaming the same area as undead armies. Makes no sense. Bandits (living humans) should spawn around settlements, and ideally they should have some sort of task they want to achieve (attack caravans? pillage and loot small settlements? that sort of stuff).

Bottomline is game needs a comprehensible structure that generates groups of enemies that roam the map and give player something to do (obtain experience and loot).

So, this is already in the game. There’s a formula to how the bandits spawn; you probably just haven’t noticed it yet.

There are bandit camps (often located in the woods) from where bandits will launch their assault on villages and caravans. Their goal is generally to avoid fighting tough encounters and to attack stragglers and undefended villages for sackloads of loot. You’ll often find them roaming in the wilderness (where their camps are hidden) or along the roads (where they do their raiding) for that reason.

Bandit camps that spawn bandits are easily recognizable because their names are red.

Orcish camps that spawn orcs have green names.

Undead camps that spawn undead have purple names.

Locations with gray names do not spawn monsters at all and exist solely to be looted AFAIK… or to even the odds of a fight, but that’s another topic.

Basically, there’s already a pattern to how enemies spawn. Orcs will set up camps usually in the swamps and work their way toward civilization. Bandits will build camps either in the woods or near the road (but usually not near a settlement) so they can raid caravans with impunity. Goblins… I haven’t actually found any goblin camps yet. And undead seem to build far off to the north and work their way down toward civilization.

So, the pattern is there. If you want to find out where the bad guys are spawning from, visit a watchtower or castle and see if you can get a contract to wipe out a camp of bandits or orcs.

[Meeky]

Another idea is adding some high tier troops for them. Like some armoured wolfrides with charge and heavy armour or heavy front line troops with a lot of pikes(that can actually fight against armoured troopers).

While I feel heavily armored troops wouldn’t work out, I wonder if maybe having some units on the team that increase the vision range of goblin archers at night could be fun. Namely: goblin cavalry wielding torches and nets.

So, let’s pretend that there’s an elite cadre of goblin wolfriders whose job is to increase vision for ambushers at night. They rush up to the enemy army with lit torches, thus giving the ambushers vision of that area. They then toss nets onto the enemies rather than immediately engage, the better to slow them down, and start flanking like wolfriders already do. Alternatively, the torch could be their “shield” slot item instead. Give them bolas or javelins and they can do hit and run attacks with their thrown weapons while providing vision for their army.

While in the light of the torches, player units could have reduced ranged defense (thanks to being easier to see) on top of being seen by the goblin archers. The reason? It’s hard to see past the light of a torch, but easy to see into the light of a torch, so the humans and wolf riders caught in the torchlight would be easier to hit and less able to dodge weapons fired at them. (People didn’t actually go chasing things through the night with torches and pitchforks. Torches would give away their position and make it nigh impossible for them to find what they were after.)

Basically, if goblins get elite units, they should not be heavily armored. That doesn’t suit them. Instead, they should get a unit that adds something to the game that fits that weird goblin aesthetic and fighting style.

Heck, I’d actually enjoy seeing goblins riding giant spiders as a deadly sort of foe. They could have the ability to maneuver through normally impassable obstacles without difficulty (like trees and logs and large rocks).

[Meeky]

I don’t know if they’d be top tier enemies / bosses, but I’d love to see them as well as undead dogs and undead goblins. Necromancers could make some seriously nasty monsters.

Heck, imagine some undead dogs running alongside ghouls as the initial attack as Fallen Heroes and undead orcs come up behind them. That’d be a fairly frightening force.

[Meeky]

I’d actually like something like this, though probably not quite as simple as this. I think some backgrounds might just not work together well (Killer on the Run + a monk, or an raider fighting alongside a caravan guard?), so they’d develop cohesion slowly. Others may develop it more quickly (the militiaman and the old veteran; the squire and the adventurous noble; the bastard and the disowned noble). It’d have to deal with that and random events if it were included, IMO.

[Meeky]

So, since you’re doing village screen work, I’d like to ask:

Are you doing more art for employers? And will we be able to tell what sort of job we’re about to get depending on what the employer looks like? So that a guard captain or a knight offering you a job will probably be asking you to go burn down a bandit / orc camp, or a desperate, pleading villager might ask you to hunt down werewolves, and a fat merchant may ask you to escort his caravan?

[Meeky]

PsenBattle wrote:

What we will try to implement at least is a two-layer system for shields. So even though we cant recreate all banners, we we can at least show color and emblem in different combinations.

Honestly, I think that’d be great and more than enough. I mean, for instance: having a banner with a white-and-red background with a black axe in the center and golden trim along the bottom is cool, but a shield with a white OR red background with the black axe atop it would work perfectly fine for my glorified vagabonds – I mean, mercenaries.

1-2 colors + the emblem would be more than enough, honestly, if that’s easy to produce. I’m not an artist so I don’t know how easy or hard that is.

Liking those smithies you posted, by the way.

One more question for the time being: What sort of sources of inspiration will you be using for your building art? The blog post about the village rework showed some buildings that definitely seemed German to me, but also some that made me think of a Norse outpost. Namely:

The buildings in the background near the fort specifically gave me that Norse vibe. So, yeah: I’d love to know what cultures you’re examining when working on your art, or if there are any specific castles / towns you’re basing designs off of.

[Meeky]

Out of curiosity, will we be seeing different breeds of dogs in the future, or will we largely be seeing color variations as we do presently?

Also, if custom banners are eventually added, will there be plans to have shields available that somewhat match the banners?

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