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[Retropunch]

@ Retropunch:
We definitely thought about gaining traits during the game. Right now Brothers start out with a couple of predetermined traits depending on their charakter background but adding traits dynamically (im thinking total war series) would be awesome. Well put that on our backlog, dont know when we manage to work on that though.

Great to hear! Even very minor traits which are basically just small stat buffs would make you want to hang onto brothers.

Thinking about it more deeply, I think it'd be great to have have different ranks within the brothers, where gaining experience could get them promoted.
This could result in a higher ranked brother giving a boost to lower ranked brothers whilst they were in play. This would make experienced brothers much more precious, and lead to a lot more tactics in balancing the cost of losing them(and their bonuses for all other brothers) to their power in battle and just generally needing the man power.

Depending on how it balances out, they could only provide buffs to nearby brothers (in an aura type mechanism) so that they couldn't just be held at the back, and possibly giving negative effects to brothers if they died.

Even if this system was relatively simplistic, it'd still be a sure incentive to want to try to keep brothers alive.

[Jaysen]

We do not have a "ranking" system in the game but a quite similar mechanic!
Battle Brothers gain experience and level up like in many other RPGs. On level-up they can choose a perk to improve their combat effectiveness. Perks are divided into defensive, offensive and utility-perks. There are some perks that increase bravery or combat performance of nearby brothers effectively creating a sort of "leader". This way we end up with a pretty similar outcome but instead of tying the rank to experience level, we let the player decide who should be a leader.

[Jaysen]

We are working like crazy to get more stuff into the game so this week we have a general progress update for you:

Dev Blog #31: Progress Update - Orcs, UI, New Weapons


In this week’s update we have a lot of big and small additions to the game. The largest part was implementing all the skills, graphics, weapons and characters of the orcs into the game and to teach the AI how to make good use of all that. On top of that, we added a bunch of new weapons that have been outstanding for a while, and we implemented new UI features and elements. Lets go into some details...

Orc implementation

After last week’s faction reveal we’ve been busy putting all the orc assets into the game. Most of the work was not adding our greenskinned friends to the game themselves, but improving the AI to make the best use of all the nice and shiny new weapons and skills. The AI had to learn how to effectively manage and account for fatigue and morale which the undead did not have to do, as well as a lot of other tactical considerations to allow for the orcs to behave just like we want them to. As a nice side effect, the AI of the undead also benefitted from this and now has some new tricks up its sleeves.

We now have a line battle scenario in the game where a band of Battle Brothers faces off against a bloodthirsty band of orcs lead by a fearsome Orc Warlord. Hopefully we can show the ensuing battle, or massacre, in a commented gameplay video next week. As mentioned before, the orcs will require a drastic re-thinking of the tactics that were effective against the undead. Of course, in the full game campaign where you meet both orcs and undead, you’ll have to adapt quickly to any new enemy or you’re going to have a hard time.



UI - Drag & Drop and Combat Statistics

Another big chunk of work has been done on improving the UI and adding new features to it. A thing we’ve been working on for a while is the drag & drop mechanic for managing all your armor, weapons and equipment. This is actually more work than one might expect, but we’ll spare you the tricky details and just let you know that its in the game now

A completely new feature that we can now check off our list is the combat result screen that shows after tactical combat. The screen shows two tabs: Statistics and Loot.



The statistics show all Battle Brothers that participated in this particular encounter. For each Brother you’ll see the damage dealt, the damage received, the number of enemies killed, the experience gained, the number of days a Brother will be wounded if he received any injuries and whether he gained a new level. All these stats are not only great for the player to see but they also help us evaluate the combat performance of various equipment set-ups.



The second screen shows the loot you found during that battle. Here you can directly drag & drop all the equipment into your stash from the battlefield. In the loot screen all equipment that has been dropped by enemies during combat will show up - so don’t worry about picking all the stuff up during battle. Also, you don’t have to run around the map after combat looking for any drops you might have missed.

New Weapons

As you all know there can never be enough weapons to cut down your enemies with, so we added a bunch more. Besides the orc weapons we added the Greataxe to the Battle Brothers armory. Even more exciting, we now have the first throwing weapon in the game: The Javelin. We have a whole bunch of throwing weapons on our backlog that will be added in time, but we’re happy to finally have the first of its kind working in the game.



The Greataxe is a two-handed battle axe that can be used both to devastate a single target as well as be swung around in a circle around a Battle brother, potentially hitting every adjacent tile. Another thing it excels at is destroying enemy shields. Most smaller shields wil be destroyed with a single strike of this heavy axe. Because the Round Swing attack hits friends and foes alike, the Greataxe is best used by separated Battle Brothers at the flank of a battle line so that they have enough room to use their axe to full effect. The attack also isn’t particularly accurate, so the Greataxe is best placed in the hands of an experienced man and not a freshly recruited farmhand who never held a weapon before.



Javelins are small throwing spears that can be carried in one hand and are usually thrown directly before close combat to weaken the enemies’ battle line. They come in small stacks of four but can be easily used and carried along a shield and one-handed weapon. This makes the javelins a great and flexible addition to most Battle Brothers’ equipment. Their range is rather short compared to arrows and bolts, and they are exhausting to throw. However, their damage is high even against armored targets. What is more, they can also damage enemy shields if they hit those, weakening them or even rendering light shields outright unusable. This makes them great tools to be thrown at the enemy battle line before engaging. Of course, the AI will now use Javelins as well, especially if you set up a nasty defensive Spearwall it has little interest in engaging head on.

[rumpel]

Awesome! I'm so excited! :>

[Jaysen]

Want to see the Orcs in action? Have a look at this commented gameplay and watch me struggle against the green terror

Dev Blog #32: Orc Line Battle Video

We’ve talked a lot about the Orc faction so far. Now it’s time to see the greenskins in action!

Our new gameplay video covers a line battle against the orcs with full commentary from one of our devs. Expect a lot of carnage and get properly scared of the green menace! Also, we have a lot of new stuff in the video: Two-handed axes, javelins, battle statistics, and more. Go ahead and check it out:

[rumpel]

I would like to use your forum but since I didn't find a thread for the latest update, I'll just throw it in here:

Will there be any updated (combat) demo anytime soon? Or do you guys wait until you got your EA up on Steam? Anyways, it seems like I really have to travel those 6 hours by train to Hamburg and start killing those nasty orcs in your office. :p

The game looks awesome. I'm sooo looking forward to this!

Oh, by the way, you could use IndieGoGo - afaik it's available in Germany...

Edit: I just realized that we're able to comment on your dev blog. Going to use that next time. :>

By the way², will there be town/hamlet scenarios? Like a siege/attack on such where we'll be able to defend, eg standing on wooden palisades and such kind of things?

[Rap]

Glad you like it!

I'm afraid we won't update the combat demo anytime soon. Next stop is the Early Access version which we focus all our energy on.

Yes, we want to eventually have villages, encampments, dungeons and such portrayed also on the combat maps. However, this will most likely not be a part of the first EA release and is something which we'll add later.

Also, I wish we had an actual office

[rumpel]

Awww, well good to hear that you focus on EA though! It reminds me a bit of Battle for Wesnoth (which I pumped a lot of hours into) just more tactical and more brutal and all that stuff.

I hope I didn't read over the following question in the FAQ, but will there be any sort of small quests eg. if you travel across the world and come to a village and they may hire/ask you to kill of the robbers that harass them? If yes, how will this system look like?

[Jaysen]

Glad you like what you see so far! The tactical combat has some similarities with Wesnoth but wait until you see our worldmap gameplay, that will add a whole new layer to the game.

Regarding quests, we replaced the good 'ol RPG-Questsystem with our own take on it which we call "contracts". Fitting for a mercenary company you can only have one at a time and they will be offered by various factions in the world.

There is a lot of information on the contracts in this dev blog entry: Dev Blog #26 Greenlight Update and Mercenary Contracts

Additionally, we think about adding small "random" events and encounters that occur while traveling the lands but we have to keep that on the backlog for now.

[rumpel]

Ah, thanks for the answer. Seems like I missed quite a few dev blog entries. Should give me something to read this weekend.

[Jaysen]

How fast is your reading? Need some more?

Here you go

Dev Blog #33: Progress Update - Character Generation, Hiring and Shopping

With the Early Access release coming up early next year we try to step up our game and make a lot of progress each week. This week we have for you a complete rework of how Battle Brothers are generated and rendered. Get prepared for uniquely looking Battle Brothers with no less than 80,640 possible combinations for heads currently!

On the worldmap we also added two more core features - hiring new Battle Brothers and the buying and selling of equipment. Let’s take a look...

Character Generation Rework

We took a step back and reworked the whole process of how Battle Brothers are rendered in the game. First, all heads have been separated into hair, face and beard and made freely combinable. Second, we added a massive amount of faces, hairstyles and beards in different colors so that we ended up with a staggering 80,640 possible combinations of unique looking Battle Brothers - and that isn’t even counting in all the different equipment they can wear. For every campaign, all Battle Brothers will be randomly generated so that every player will get their very own set of mercenaries. Let’s take a look at this in action:



As we now have hair and beard on separate layers, helmets no longer need to be extra large to cover all hair. This allows both for more creative hairstyles and also to decrease helmet size by roughly 10%, resulting in more realistic proportions.



What is more, we also separated the armor from the bodies so that they also have a layer of their own and are rendered ontop of bodies. This makes it easier to show broken or damaged armor with parts missing and also allows Battle Brothers to have unique skin colors for more variety.

Hiring

A core mechanic in a game about mercenaries is hiring them, of course, which we just finished implementing.

When approaching a village or city you can visit the local tavern and have a look at all the volunteers offering their swordarm for coin. Each volunteer comes with their own background, like being a farmhand or a retired soldier, a procedural background story, and their own equipment. Both the hiring fee and the daily wage they request depend heavily on the character’s background. A skilled and seasoned sellsword who brings a chainmail and sword with him will cost as much as 10 times or more compared to a sickly beggar with a club. We want you to make some tough decisions here when deciding which volunteer to hire. Would you rather hire a few well equipped and battle hardened fighters, or a wild bunch of cheap beggars, thiefs and outcasts with no combat experience?



Like everywhere else in the game we don’t want to reveal more stats here than necessary. You won’t see any numbers besides the costs, but based on the background you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Want a strong and sturdy Battle Brother? A farmhand or lumberjack is a good bet. Want someone good with ranged weapons? Try to hire a hunter. Need someone with combat experience? A sellsword or a retired soldier should do, although the latter might not have the stamina of a young man anymore. What is more, all characters come with traits, good and bad, which are also linked to backgrounds. Characters used to hard work are more likely to have the “strong” or “tough” traits, and while you won’t find any insecure adventurous nobles, they can be as brave as they can be cocky and overconfident.

There is also a chance of characters having a title based on their traits, like an especially large and sturdy character being known as “the Mountain”, which should give you a hint. You’ll have to hire them to find out what hidden traits they have exactly. If you want to know more, you can read up on character backgrounds and traits in an earlier dev blog article.

All in all, our goal is to have all the characters have a lot of, well, “character” despite them being randomly generated. Their unique looks, their background stories and their traits all come together for this. Some players won’t care about this, but if you don’t want a fisherman who strangled his wife to death in your band of mercenaries, you better take a close look at who it is that is applying to join you.

Ye Olde Shoppe

What do you do with your freshly hired Battle Brothers? Get them some weapons for bashing in heads of course!

In villages and cities, but also in military locations like watchtowers and strongholds, you can spend your crowns on equipment like weapons and armor and also sell surplus equipment to fill up the piggybank. Shops have different equipment for sale depending on the wealth of the location and the type. A civilian village will sell different things than a military stronghold, and some pieces of weapons and amor will only be available in one of the two.



The wealth of a location also determines the quality and quantity of available equipment, as well as its price. Villages that are bled dry from bandit raids and lost a lot of wealth will have little to offer you, whereas rich cities will have a great selection of equipment for you to purchase at kingly prices. If you make it your mission to protect a village for some time, even if the village isn’t able to reward you much at first, you can see it grow and stock up on better equipment.

[rumpel]

Lovely!

[Fikes]

Now that you guys have reworked the brothers images.... any plan to include females. I think I remember you saying the hold up was the art it would require.

Honestly I could not care less. There are very few female mercenaries even today but I know some people felt strongly about it.

[Rap]

It's not a high priority for now, though, and probably not something that will be in the first EA release.

[Retropunch]

It's sad that this will become such a big issue (especially as the game is called battle BROTHERS) but I do agree that it will become one if there aren't female mercenaries.

That being said, it may add more diversity to mercenary ranks which is always a good thing.