thenewromance

[thenewromance]

I like the “incorporeal commander” idea. It puts you in the shoes, not some random guy. XCOM did that, too, the old one and the new one, and I think it was well done. FTL as well, as another high-profile example.

This could, of course, be complemented with an officer system, so that you do in fact have a “leader in the field”, one of your men. I don’t think those ideas are mutually exclusive, however. Also, if you think mercenary companies don’t need a figurehead, please go ahead and tell that to Mr da Vinci. ;)

[thenewromance]

Hobbes wrote:

Oh I love a challenge, don’t get me wrong, but I think the goblins are -too well organised-, if that makes sense. Skirmishers are all decked out with bolas AND melee weapons AND shields. I got jumped by an ambush party loaded with ghille suits and all kinds of horrors, these are goblins who are really out to kick ass, like, end game goblins on day 5. That seems a bit unbalanced. It might be that you need to set up the equivalent of “Orc Young” for the early days so bands don’t get arbitrarily wiped out to begin with.

Of course, yes. My post was meant more as a reminder for the long run.

[thenewromance]

Yay for the new patch! I think this is going in the right direction. Of course, you’ll have to keep in mind that no one on this forum is gonna cry when the game gets too easy, so aim for a fair but hard challenge – at least in the long run. Wolfriders, as nasty as they are, shouldn’t be slower than your brother footmen forever :)

[thenewromance]

PsenBattle wrote:

thenewromance wrote:

55 fatigue isn’t really much, though.

Thats true, I also like to keep them at around 80. Only if I need some pure tanks and I am short on experienced men, I put newbies in massive suits of armor and just let them stand in the front row absorbing damage

I see :)

[thenewromance]

PsenBattle wrote:

Jago wrote:

That, and the labeling. Even puny Goblin groups pose a serious threat.

We will adress the Goblin labelling very soon, as well as some other changes. It’s the first workday today after releasing the Goblin Update, and we are on the case

Don’t hurry! I like the idea of tiny goblins actually having a serious working military. However, those units probably shouldn’t appear in force in the first few days. Have goblin scouts, raiders and infiltrators show up first, you know, (very) light infantry and maybe the odd light cavalry. Regular chainmailed line infantry accompanied by sniper commandos should follow later.

As an aside: do goblins actually have a lower morale? It doesn’t seem so to me, they hold the line pretty well.

[thenewromance]

PsenBattle wrote:

I am entering a bit late here, but let me answer a few things:

thenewromance wrote:

Have the spawning rules for enemy groups been changed? I was obliterated within the second day. First encounter: the tutorial one, no problems. Second encounter: “challenging” or “deadly” (don’t remember exactly) bandits

The second encounter should always be the abandoned graveyard right next to the city. It is visible from the start and intended to get your bros some more fighting experience and money.
Challenging enemies are superior to your troupe, hence the name. If you fight an “even” group the chances of winning are considered to be 50/50. Hence the name “even”.
Spawning rules have not been changed, excpet for werwolves, those are now smaller groups and shouldnt be a problem to deal with anymore.
Enemy groups shouldnt move faster than you on the worldmap, especially if they have more men than you, so its possible to avoid encounters with superior enemies.

Okay… the “challenging” bandits that got me in the end had one less man than me, but were way faster. The goblins were about the same speed as me (which means one maneuvering mistake and they’ve got you). However, I feel that enemy warbands don’t get as bogged down by terrain as the battle brothers. Is that true? It’s especially noticeable when entering a village surrounded by fields. The enemy has always been able to close in on me in those cases. Maybe I’m just seeing things. I don’t find it very easy to avoid enemies, except for when you’re able to just run down the road you came towards some fortified settlement. In the forests, I don’t manage to.

[thenewromance]

PsenBattle wrote:

Olek wrote:

I really hope that when the reputation system is implemented, that it coincides with a feature that lets you know the difficulty of the job before taking it, as quite often I take a job, turn up to the location and find it to be deadly, and have no choice but to break contract.

Absolutely. The reputation system will be very closely intertwined with the new contract system and you will only be offered contracts according to your fame and reputation.
Nobody in his right mind would hire some beggars to kill a dragon

Unless they’re really allied with the dragon and want to send him food… ;) Could also be necromancers in disguise craving for strong new specimen experiment on. Just sayin’!

[thenewromance]

55 fatigue isn’t really much, though. I found that around 80 is necessary when you really want to keep up attacks and some special moves throughout several turns. I don’t know if engagements last as long after this new update, but beforehand I wasn’t really able to finish off enemies in one or two turns, and after that my guys usually couldn’t get their shieldwall up anymore.

[thenewromance]

Have the spawning rules for enemy groups been changed? I was obliterated within the second day. First encounter: the tutorial one, no problems. Second encounter: “challenging” or “deadly” (don’t remember exactly) bandits. Fled towards the help of Landsknechts. Third encounter: “deadly” goblins. Fled towards the help of “deadly” Landsknechts, who in turn turned and ran from the goblins. Fortunately, “impossible” Landsknechts arrived. The two Landsknecht squads and my brothers combined were able to defeat 5 goblins and make one rout, at the cost of 2 Landsknechts and several wounded. It was 24 against 6. Goes to show how hard goblins are… even comparably strong Landsknechts run. Now, fourth encounter: “challenging” bandits away from any help. Game over.

That didn’t happen to me in earlier builds. There was the odd unmanageable werewolf attack, but apart from that the difficulty ramped up nicer. I really believe there shouldn’t be “deadly” goblins beside the main route and castle on day one or two. Neither should overwhelmingly powerful bandits be besetting you within minutes of starting the game.

[thenewromance]

I’m sure this will all be figured out in time. I hope everyone stays patient. Game balancing, especially while introducing new systems, can take ages.

[thenewromance]

In a cruel turn of fate, goblins have gone from punchingball and butt of jokes to the greatest horror since the Plague :D

[thenewromance]

Best to include, optimize and balance everything that’s planned before spreading out too far.

[thenewromance]

The homing click is really important, as it’s just very counter-intuitive to have your band head for the enemy and then charge right through them like it’s an incorporeal joust, while the enemy moves on engage the caravan… It just doesn’t feel good, and I don’t know what problems a change would bring. I feel it’s comparable to the auto-route finding, your band sticking to the roads on longer journeys, which was introduced lately and hasn’t caused any problems so far, just created more convenience.

[thenewromance]

GOD wrote:

That’s the thing though, going without a helmet into combat is just about the worst mistake you can make. Not having a helmet is something for movies, as you’d just die without one in a fight.
Toggling them on and off would also conflict with the idea of everything that you see on the map actually being there and would remove an important visual short-hand for what state your merc is in.
However, If you need help identifying your merc, how about having a portrait of the unit’s head in the command UI on the bottom, in addition to the name? It would need to be unobtrusive, so I don’t have a mental image of how you’d make it work without conflicting with the design, but it’s something that the future UI programmer might be able to pull off.

I agree with you that going without a helmet would probably result in quick death in combat. However, I am unsure whether actual medieval helmets offered that much protection against blows, and if their defensive value actually outweighed the costs of wearing them, but that is a question that leads to endless debate and most likely not to fun gameplay :)

I do still feel that identifying mercs is more difficult than it should be. Maybe the subject should be left to the eventual UI design, but it should not be forgotten. The unobstructed face in the command is actually a neat idea. It could appear right next to the name (which should definitely show the title, as the ID issue gets only worse when several mercs have the same name :) )

[thenewromance]

Anonymous wrote:

Sugg.1

Would be nice to have option of “following/guarding” caravan automatically, since its a bore to follow them with click…click…click. Could be active as long as caravan is underway or you click on map whenever you need to scout or intercept something.

Yep.

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