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[Lapoleon]

Sounds cool. I'd also suggest for towns to give quests based on walking distance in stead of actual distance. I've had to take enormous detours to kill the camp that is "just across the river"  and with what seem to be stretches of sea that will only be more prevalent.

[ThtblovesDF]

I'd love to have many, smaller alive things, i. e. induvidual farm houses that are either in ruins (orcsys) or doing fine.

I'd love to have some battlefield manipulation, be it barricades, traps or just some more terrain types. Maybe make corpse matter? So after I kill the army of orc youngs, the warriors take a little longer to get over there dead fellas.

[Jaysen]

We have something like those small locations planned and those will be attached to villages. Re-building or freeing them of monsters will add to the services and goods in that village. But more on this in a dedicated blog post later this week!

We also thought about traps and barricades. Although we like barricades more because traps lead to a very defense playstyle and have a pretty high frustration potential

[ThtblovesDF]

Alright, great to hear : )

I'm really enjoying the events, i.e. getting a master bow made from a bowyer created a item with a story that was really good. Sadly, now that I'm in lategame I tend to hit the level limit and then feel like that party members story ends for the most part, since there only way to grow is the sparse events and gear, if better ones get added. Would be intresting if one could "remove" a brother from active service, but get them back later. I'd love to take a pile of young recuits monster hunting and bandit crushing to level more efficently, since its not like the kills/xp of the already maxed out brothers leak down to the low level ones. (or?)

Which would be nice, just saying.

[Jaysen]

The game definitely lacks in late game content and character development at the moment. We have a couple of ideas for that but right now we focus on the worldmap generation and the new city screens. Of course we are collecting good ideas for the late game all the time

[Jaysen]

The village screens so far have been just placeholders for what is to come. Check out the first pictures of the new thing:

Dev Blog #53: Village Screen Rework

After talking about the general worldmap generation in our last blogpost, this week we’re going to take a look at some of the changes and additions coming to the village screens. The rework of the village screens is twofold: We’re doing both a complete visual rework and adding lots of new features. Let’s go into some details!

How it’ll work

A key design goal for our new worldmap is to have every corner feel unique and make for a less generic world overall. That’s why we’re adding more terrain types and unique landmarks (more about them later!), and that’s also what we’re trying to achieve with all the settlements you can interact with in the world. Whereas previously all villages, cities, watchtowers and strongholds looked exactly the same, did the same, and were pretty much interchangeable, we want all the new settlements to be recognizable across the world for their individual look and very different services they offer.

Settlements now have a clearer purpose and this is reflected both in gameplay and visuals. For example, a fishing village along the coast will offer you predominantly fish as provisions for relatively cheap prices, have more fishermen than other backgrounds to hire, and will have visuals that reflect its purpose. A mining village at the foot of mountains, on the other hand, will have a better selection of both metal-based equipment and potential recruits with the miner background. Another change relevant mostly to those of you that speak German is that settlements now always have a name that actually fits them. No longer will you find 'Dunkelwald' on open plains!



The all-new village screen shows a panorama of the whole settlement and not just a single street corner anymore. It’s made up of 15 different layers with a variety of different images to make each and every settlement appear unique. The background layers are determined by the surrounding terrain, with villages close to a forest or high up north in the snow looking accordingly. Atop a hill sits a townhall or fortification of different size based on the type and size of the settlement, and the hill is flanked with different houses or terrain depending on the settlement’s purpose. The most important part are a set of buildings placed along the incline. Those can be interacted with, and they offer all kinds of different services to the player.



You’ll find a marketplace of some kind to buy general supplies at in almost every settlement. Larger cities may also have specialized traders that offer higher quality weapons or armor for higher prices. Taverns may allow you to give your men a good night’s rest in relative safety, and the docks of coastal villages and cities allow you to book passage on a ship to other settlements as a means of fast travel. This modular system of buildings allows us to easily add new buildings with new services as we progress in development. There’s a lot of things that come to mind - a money lender or a barber to customize the appearance of your Battle Brothers, for example. We’ve yet to see what buildings will make it into the game in the first round, and which buildings may be added later on.

Note that the above images are still work in progress and do not represent the final quality. There are no people in the settlements yet, and we’ll do another pass to make all the buildings easily identifiable. The village screen currently in the game was always considered placeholder by us and the new village screen will feature artwork at a higher quality for what will ultimately be a nice coherent look across the whole game. The image below shows a tavern at full size and should give you a good idea on how detailed everything will end up looking.

[Jaysen]

Time for getting rid of all that green on the worldmap and spice it up. New terrains in this weeks dev blog:

Dev Blog #54: Progress Update - Village Screens and Worldmap Terrain

This week we've been hard at work implementing both the new village screen we talked about last week, as well as finding an overall visual style for all the new terrain types of our redone worldmap. Let's take a look!

Village Screens

Last week we've shown you two examples of the new and very different village screen that is made up of a variety of layers, like different terrain in the background and buildings for you to interact with. Now we're adding more and more content to create any kind of settlement - be it a small village, a stone keep or a large trading city.

To give you a better idea of the variety of buildings you can expect, here is a first look at the work-in-progress armorsmith and weaponsmith buildings.



While many smaller villages will have but a marketplace that offers lower grade and often used equipment amidst everyday goods like food and clothing, these two specialized traders found in larger cities will sell new and finely crafted equipment for steep prices.

In medieval times, villages and cities were usually pretty busy places with all kinds of folks going about their business, selling things, loitering, looking for work or having a chat. To liven up the town screens we’ll add a lot of folks to the scenery. Below you'll see a first iteration of how these groups may look. Keep in mind that they’ll be pretty tiny on the actual screen, so the rough shading is on purpose.



Worldmap Terrain

Unlike with the village screen visuals, development of the new worldmap visuals is still at an early stage with things changing around a lot. Our first step is finding a style for each of the different terrain types that works both in itself and as part of a coherent whole that is the larger map. Because we want to have each region in the world to convey an atmosphere of its own, and the world as a whole to look pretty varied, we're currently experimenting with different colors and effects we can use. The image below shows a work-in-progress shot of some of the terrain we've been working on this week.

[PrimusRibbus]

Such happy little trees!

[Jaysen]

Time for a weekly developers update:

Dev Blog #55: Progress Update - Region Labels and Worldmap Exploration

While we're busy working on the new worldmap, there's two new features we want to talk to you about today: distinct regions on the worldmap that have names of their own, and better worldmap exploration through the use of Fog of War. Let's take a look!

Region Labels

The world of Battle Brothers is procedurally generated and not handcrafted like in many other games. This has the great advantage of having a different world for you to play in every time you start a new campaign, adding a lot to replayability. It also comes with some drawbacks, however. A procedurally generated world can feel kind of random, and lack a feeling of history and purpose to it.



We're doing several things to address this, and one of them is introducing the concept of different regions to the game. Regions are areas of one particular terrain, for example a mountain ridge or large open plains. The larger regions have been named by the inhabitants of the world according to their history and beliefs, and we display these names on the worldmap much like they'd be displayed on a map. The names used in the screenshot are largely placeholders still, but the intent is to have the names convey a certain character and sometimes history attached to them. With the world no longer just a collection of nameless interchangeable mountains and forests, we'll also refer to regions in both contracts and events for helpful directions and to increase immersion in a world that is new with every campaign and yet should feel rich and lived in.

Worldmap Exploration

Another idea that's been in the drawer for a long time and that we're now implementing is to improve the experience of exploring the worldmap by uncovering what is initially covered by fog. Battle Brothers is a game with a lot of traveling, exploration and visiting new areas and regions. A hidden worldmap that is gradually uncovered by the player should add to the sense of exploration and adventure. On the practical side of things, it also helps to see at a glance where you've already been and where to explore next.



Initially, only the area around human settlements and the roads between them is uncovered. The wild, home to Goblins, Orcs and worse is for you to explore.What you can’t see from the screenshot is that the fog is actually animated in the game and looks quite cool.

[Ghazkull]

So does that mean that if i travel far enough east i suddenly find myself out of the human kingdoms and in Orcish and Goblin Cities?

Another question, since we are playing a Mercenary Company would it also be possible to work with Bandits, Lords warring against each other (aka working with an invading army and plundering cities and towns), Orcs,Goblins or even a Necromancer if he pays handsomely enough?

[Retropunch]

The worldmap stuff looks fantastic! I'd really encourage you to add as much variance to the overmap as humanly possible. Having different factions or civilizations on the map and a coherent area for each would make it really give the world a more living feel. If you added to that some sort of faction/nation system, with contracts improving or lowering your status with each faction/nation you'd have an incredibly dynamic world with some interesting tactical choices.
"Do I want to take out this well paid and easy contract against the Nation of Foo? As they're the nation closest to the goblin wilds It'd make it difficult to use them as a staging post in the future but I could use the gear now..." and so on.

[Jaysen]

So does that mean that if i travel far enough east i suddenly find myself out of the human kingdoms and in Orcish and Goblin Cities?

Another question, since we are playing a Mercenary Company would it also be possible to work with Bandits, Lords warring against each other (aka working with an invading army and plundering cities and towns), Orcs,Goblins or even a Necromancer if he pays handsomely enough?

There will be realms of other factions like Orcs and Golbins but there are always hostile towards humans. However, different Orc tribes might fight each other or work together just like the different human factions we want to introduce.

With the new contract system there will be a lot more "evil" contracts like putting down an uprising, hunt deserters and ambush caravans. It will depend on the character of the leader of that human faction. For now it will not be possible to work for Orks and Goblins.

[Jaysen]

The worldmap stuff looks fantastic! I'd really encourage you to add as much variance to the overmap as humanly possible. Having different factions or civilizations on the map and a coherent area for each would make it really give the world a more living feel. If you added to that some sort of faction/nation system, with contracts improving or lowering your status with each faction/nation you'd have an incredibly dynamic world with some interesting tactical choices.
"Do I want to take out this well paid and easy contract against the Nation of Foo? As they're the nation closest to the goblin wilds It'd make it difficult to use them as a staging post in the future but I could use the gear now..." and so on.

Pretty much what we have planned
More details hopefully soon! There is still a lot of concpeting going on.

[Jaysen]

Time for another weeks progress report!

Dev Blog #56: Progress Update - Attached Locations



Previously we’ve talked about how settlements work once you’ve entered them (Dev Blog #53). This week we talk about how settlements will work on the new worldmap based on an entirely new concept: attached locations. These are special locations that belong to a nearby settlement and influence it in various ways. Let’s dig deeper!

Attached Locations

Did you know that all villages currently in the game have a wealth rating that increases as caravans reach it, and decreases as it is raided and militia units die? And did you know that this wealth rating determines the selection and prices of items in the shop, and the strength of militia it can spawn? Many players don't, and that's an issue.

We want the world of Battle Brothers to feel dynamic, and the player to feel that they have an impact on the world. An abstract wealth rating, unfortunately, often isn't transparent enough to explain why a settlement is doing poorly, why certain items are or are not available, and what can be done about it. To achieve where we want to go with Battle Brothers, we're therefore replacing the wealth rating with the concept of attached locations.



Attached locations are small specialized locations outside a settlement that influence heavily the available goods, services and recruitment options of that settlement. For example, outlying wheat fields will not only make food more readily available and cheaper in the nearby settlement, but also have more farmhands volunteer for your mercenary company. Iron mines, on the other hand, will increase the selection of metal-based weapons and armor in the settlement, and will bring a larger population of miners looking to take up the mercenary profession. A stone watch tower will have a look out for bandits and beasts, and may spawn militia to help out any caravans, while adding militia to the recruitment options. There are no less than 30 different attached locations on their way into the game, and they all have different effects.

In medieval times, settlements did not just randomly pop up. There was usually a pretty good reason for them being there. This reason may have been rich soil, good hunting grounds or other valuable resources like ores, wood or gems. By adding specialized attached locations we represent this in the game; settlements both look and are very different from one another based on their specialization, and as a player you'll have a pretty good idea on what to expect in terms of item selection, prices and the kind of recruits you'll be able to get just from looking at it on the worldmap.



Attached locations can also be attacked, raided and burned to the ground independently of the settlements they belong to. There will even be contracts for the player to raid these or burn them down. Once an attached location is destroyed its benefits are lost for the according settlement. As a settlement has its outlying farms in ashes and the farmhands dead, there can be shortages of food and other goods, and fewer people will be available to join you. Unlike with the abstract wealth rating from before, however, this is something easy to see and understand just from looking at the worldmap; if everything around a settlement is burned to the ground, that settlement is obviously doing poorly, whereas a settlement with all kinds of farms and workshops active will be flourishing. If a city's barracks are burned to the ground, it should be intuitively understandable that their defensive capabilities are significantly lowered. Attached locations, once burned down, are not lost forever. They can be rebuilt, and there'll also be contracts that have the player be a part of this.

[Jaysen]

This week we have some more reading material for you:

Dev Blog #57: Progress Update - Factions, Part 1

Things are progressing nicely on our end. Many mechanics of the new worldmap are already in place - albeit largely with placeholder visuals and still in need of some refinement. This week, we'll cover an entirely new and very important aspect of the worldmap rework: Factions. Let's find out what that's about!

Introduction

Battle Brothers has evolved a lot during development, and it has evolved even more so during the Early Access period since its release in late April of this year. One constant for the game is that it will always be fundamentally about managing a group of human mercenaries in a low power fantasy world. What's changing is how we're wrapping it in a game that best serves the theme and is the most fun, while at the same time keeping it at a level that is ambitious yet achievable.

As you may be aware, the current strategic open world gameplay was considered to be a milestone along the way to an ultimately more structured game experience. One aligned more along bits of story and one single emerging threat - the greater evil. The concept of a more or less united human world against a single big threat was inherited from the game's X-Com roots, and was to provide a mid and late game challenge and goal. It's a sound and achievable concept, and we're at this point now where we'd implement those greater evil mechanics. So what's happening?

We've been taking a step back to look at how we can best serve the theme of a quasi-medieval mercenary simulation given how the game has evolved, and also in light of our move to work full-time on the game some months ago and the resources now available to us. As it turns out, the game worked out quite well as an open world experience, even as barebones as it still is in some aspects.

Our conclusion is that it'd make for the best game in the long run if we really focused on improving the open world gameplay and make this one of the strengths of Battle Brothers, instead of constricting the gameplay that is already there by forcing the player to ultimately fight against a single threat each game along a much more narrow story path.

It's for this reason that we're now introducing multiple human factions to the game. No longer will there be just one implicit human faction - instead, there will be multiple ones each with their own goals and competing with others by means of diplomacy, intrigue and warfare. And it's you, the player, navigating their sea of schemes trying to make a living as hired swords. As we're tilting the focus of the game more towards interacting with these factions, you'll also be fighting more and different human enemies, and we’ll convey more story via completely reworked contract mechanics. But for now, let’s learn about the first kind of factions: human noble houses.

Noble Houses

Historically, bigger realms have always been a very diverse mixture of a lot of smaller realms and fiefdoms ruled by competing and collaborating noble houses. Although these small parts were usually devoted to a king or supreme ruler, they often changed allegiance and fought and schemed against each other in their struggle for power. The feuds between these noble houses create a perfect place for a mercenary company that is not bound to a lord and that can take on whatever contract pays best.

Like most things in Battle Brothers, noble houses are procedurally generated for each new campaign. To give them as much personality as possible we want them to look and feel very distinct from one another. Each noble house comes with a set of different traits that determine their ‘corporate culture’; their goals and their actions in achieving them - which ultimately also means the kind of contracts they’ll offer to the player. While a ‘Warmonger’ may hire mercenaries to aid in open warfare, a ‘Schemer’ may hire the player for some false-flag operation to gain influence over a neutral city.

Noble houses also come with their very own coat of arms. We dove deep into medieval heraldry to make the coats of arms realistic and believable, but we also took a bit of artistic licence to make them easier to read and more catchy. You can see some concept art pieces of how they may look in the finished game below.



Besides their coat of arms, each noble house will also have a motto. A motto is a short phrase, proverb or word of wisdom that the house identifies with. The motto will usually mirror the character of a noble house, and we’ve based these mottos on historical references as well. A very aggressive house that is bound on acquiring new settlements through war and intimidation might have a motto like “Through arrows and enemies!”. A noble house that is rather peaceful and cares about the wellbeing of its subordinates may have a motto like “Firmly in act and gently in manner”.

With the combination of all the above aspects we’re confident that there’ll be a great variety of noble houses that not only look differently but also feel different on the worldmap, offer different contracts and create new and unique situations in every game. The world of Battle Brothers starts out for now with three different noble houses that are in a kind of cold war state - they do not openly fight each other but are still working against each other in most cases in an attempt to increase their influence based on their specific goals. Mercenaries, of course, are ideal for any operations that must not be tracked back to the noble houses, and not all of them necessarily chivalrous in nature.

But wait, there’s more!

Noble houses aren’t the only factions in the world of Battle Brothers. There’s also a new ‘relations’ mechanic, and we haven’t touched on the role of individual settlements for factions yet. And is there still a greater evil around? All this and more in next week’s progress update!