Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Retropunch]

- Maybe some way to bridge the difficulty gap between fighting thugs, and fighting raiders. Maybe a third type? Raiders seem to have maybe twice the skill level of thugs, and their weapons can be just brutal on even a fairly skilled character. Meanwhile thugs can feel quite easy.
- Maybe some more low level risk, lowish reward quests. I don't mind grinding my way up cautiously, but I often end up rail-roaded into trying quests that are too hard for me out of desperation at having no other options while running out of coin.
- Perhaps some further balancing with the way difficultly is spread over the map might help.

Anyhow, I -love- the difficulty, and I really don't want the game to be made "easier", but some balancing with iron-man players in mind would be very appreciated by me. ;-)

I have to agree with Yolan - the difficulty could do with smoothing out a bit, and I'm all for games being as hardcore as possible. My problems are like Yolan, that I'm normally forced into doing quests that are too difficult for me, and that there are big jumps in difficulty in enemies.

Neither of these issues are really down to the players skill/ability, and at the time when it's a problem there aren't enough choices for you to be able to say 'well I just made the wrong decision' - you made the only decision, but unfortunately it went horribly wrong.

I'd just suggest a little bit of early game smoothing, and maybe a few more easy contracts to stop the start being so rough.

[Jaysen]

I agree that the difficulty curve could use some smoothing. The eraly game is pretty rough for most players while the late game becomes pretty easy if you know what you are doing. Right now we are tempering with the difficulty curve in our dev build to hopefully remedy this in the final release.

[Majestic7]

One thing to remember in difficulty levels is a chance for rebuilding. Sometimes you can be powerful, get the snot kicked out of you and require a chance to rebuild, like if you lose half your boys in one fight.

[Tack]

Yeah if it's an ironman-style game it should be hard enough that you'll lose people, but new people could be cheaper to hire.

[Jaysen]

We still have the building "veterans hall" available. We will see how things work out but this could be a good point for some "comeback" mechanic after losing a lot of mercs.

[Retropunch]

All good points, I always think with these sorts of games that the end game difficulty can be pretty punishing (think Zigs in DCSS) and not lose any of the enjoyment, but having to restart 3 or 4 times in the first hour just due to early bad luck is never fun.

Whilst it's a contentious issue, I do believe that the mechanic in (I think?!) GalCiv2 was pretty good. If one side was losing very heavily, they'd sometimes get a bit of an artificial push to keep them in the fight. This might be that they get given a very powerful ship, or it might be an influx of resources. Whilst GalCiv was pretty simplistic with this, I believe that BB could throw something your way if you get really down on your luck without it seeming unfair.

For instance, if you lost 80% of your men in a fight, you might (small chance) have a wandering hero hear of your courageous battle and decide to join you. A wealthy lord might decide to donate money to your cause after seeing you were destitute and so on. I'd say these would need to be very random, and have a very small chance of them actually happening, but it'd certainly keep the player in the game after a surprise loss.

[Crazy Horse]

I like the idea of enemy factions concentrating in one map area and taking over from there. The lastest devblog seems to indicate this is what is being planned. The heavy Orc Warriors are untouchable until you have a late game company but if you know they are in the east edge of the map and won't start raiding deep until, say Day 100-ish, then you can plan around them. By planning I mean finding enough hammers, of course 

[Tack]

Whilst I'm putting forward random ideas, being able to stay in inns would be awesome, for either the added safety or an increased camp bonus.
After all, the small scale of the game means you never really have more people than a town could realistically billet.
It also means that the increased time of recovery caused by medicine now being an injury-only treatment could be mitigated slightly to avoid early-game bankrupcy.

Also, do towns ever build, or are they generated with the surrounds and stay like that in perpetuity? It would be cool to see frontier towns building watchtowers, or cities on a warring border start builiding militia camps and barracks.


Will be very interested to see what the veteran hall includes. The temple is already an awesome addition.

[Neonivek]

Veteran hall if I had to guess... is the "Blacksmith" of hiring people.

Where as it is uncommon to find good leveled up people hiring from the common market (I forget what it is called)... Veteran's hall is mostly just that.

[Tack]

Hey got more of a player Q than a dev Q, but how do people go with light v heavy armor?

I generally only ever go heavier than a hauberk on my 2hguys, who I kit out with the eventual full helm and coat of plates.

But my attempts to make a skirmisher always end with them getting killed. Perks-wise I usually go Student>Fast hands>Dodge>Pathfinder>Knives>Throwing>Light armor
But honestly they never live that long.
Am I playing them wrong or are they not really viable?
I usually kit them out with no more than -2 fatigue on any piece of armor.

[stabbymcstabstab]

You generally don't have enough men to get proper skirmishes up, my current load up I is sword and shield and heavy armor on every one with a melee weapon. I also right a lot of undead so ingenerally grab the head hitting peek as standard.

[Zireael]

What is the current price and is this worth it?

[Tack]

Ah. I love to plumb the content so i've got one person with each weapon. Just put the guy with the most relevant tool at the front-
spear for goblins, hammer for orcs, lube for vampires, etc.

What is the current price and is this worth it?

$20. So yes.
Depends how much you like your turn based strategy, but if you do it's pretty good.
The gritty low-fantasy angle is pretty sweet, too.
Expect to lose men, don't think you'll always be rewarded for playing nice.

Best part is the devs are pretty quick at releasing new content so any parts which aren't yet awesome will probably be awesome later.

Oh and this is one of the forums they kick around on so it's an easy way to keep up to speed and piss them off with constant suggestions.

[Jaysen]

We talked about it a while ago but the rework of the skeletons is finally here. In this blog post you can read about their lore, weapons and tacics. Enjoy!

Dev Blog #85: The Ancient Dead, Part I

We've put to rest the old skeletons only to resurrect them as the 'ancient dead'. This week we're taking a tour through their new lore, weapons and armor, fighting style and enemy types. Let's delve in!

Introduction

The very first opponents in Battle Brothers were the undead. They were a good starting point for testing combat mechanics and developing the AI, but this early in development we didn’t yet put as much thought into their design as we’d do with later opponents. Moving on to develop orcs and goblins, we made sure that those had a certain level of cultural background reflected in their visuals, and in their choice of weapons and armor, and that they had a fighting style of their own, one that challenges players in unique ways and requires different tactics to beat reliably. In contrast, there isn’t really anything unique about how skeletons fight in the game, or about how they look. They’re just your generic fantasy skeletons - until now.



The world wasn’t always like it is now. Ruins dot the map, mass graves, sunken castles. But where did they come from?

Many hundred years ago, in a different era, an empire of man spanned much of the known world. What has fallen into ruin now, what was abandoned to nature and beast, what has long been forgotten, all this was that of man once. An empire, not of petty noble houses, but one of a dozen provinces, from the frozen tundra of the north to the blistering sands of the south, of a dozen peoples under one banner.

So many peoples, so many cultures and ideas under one roof, all vying to pull the empire into a direction of their own. Could those not be reconciled? Did they, in the end, just pull the empire apart? As remote lands became provinces of the empire, so could local cults become religions that swept across its entirety. Was the authority of the emperor lost to religion? Was it the gods that punished man for worshipping spirits that promised to give what they would not?

Does it matter now what brought it down? The ancient dead are rising again, not living and yet not dead. Long lost legions heed the call of their emperor. They march once more, tirelessly and without emotion, to claim again what was once theirs. What brought down the empire in the end, and what is bringing it back to unlife, is for you to piece together based on clues hidden within the world, if you want to learn more.

The Ancient Legions

The bulk of the ancient dead is made up of the ancient legions. They are what conquered most of the known world once, and they may well do so again. Legions that never tire, legionnaires that know no fear, a cold machine that ever marches forward. What could stop them?



The legions fight like they did hundreds of years ago - in tight formation two ranks deep, with shields in front and polearms in the back. They rely quite heavily on the front row providing protection with their shields and locking down the enemy, while the second row uses polearms to inflict heavy damage on their opponents. A formation like this doesn’t charge like undisciplined rabble, but advances slowly and makes heavy use of shields to protect against arrow fire. They don’t possess any ranged weaponry and don’t do flanking maneuvers, preferring to simply walk through any enemy. Because much of their strength is in their formation, they’re at a disadvantage when fighting in difficult terrain, such as forests. They are also the missing piece of the puzzle that makes resolve an important attribute, as fighting them continually puts a test to the morale of the men.



The ancient legions come with a whole lot of unique armor, helmets and weapons. It’s old, it’s brittle and sometimes broken, but it can still be deadly. All of it, except for some cloth rags, is lootable and can be equipped by your Battle Brothers.

Ancient Auxiliary

Recruited from local vassals was the light infantry, the ancient auxiliaries. Because Battle Brothers, at least for now, focuses on a pseudo-germanic region of the world, the equipment of these auxiliary troops is based on the look of ancient germanic and celtic warriors.



An auxiliary is armed with spear, short sword or falx - a new weapon unique to them. They’re lightly armored, often just with the remains of cloaks sporting the pattern of their ancient clans, and sometimes helmets passed down through the family. Time has taken a toll on both weapons and armor, and so you may find them attacking with broken swords seemingly unaware of it

Ancient Legionary

Ancient legionnaires make up the medium infantry. Once professional soldiers, legionnaires enlisted for several years to be trained and used in the empire’s campaigns in exchange for land they could settle at and call their own. Legionnaires are well-armed with metal armor, sword and shield, or pike.



Legions from all the different eras of the empire answer its call, so you’ll find legionnaires that died a hundred years apart, all with different armor, helmet and shield design, to march together.

Ancient Honor Guard

Recruited from the ranks of veteran legionnaires are the ancient honor guard, once used as personal bodyguards and as heavy infantry to tip the scales of battle. The highest honor a common legionary could hope to achieve, joining the honor guard involved a symbolic death to shed the weakness and frailty of man, and being transformed into a tool of the emperor. No longer a man, but the manifestation of the emperor’s will, the honor guard was encased entirely in armor that did not show any flesh, becoming essentially a living, moving and fighting statue.



Honor guards make use of heavy weaponry from all corners of the ancient empire, such as the warscythe, the rhomphaia and a two-handed cleaver. They were once among the finest and most dedicated warriors of their time, and although now but bones in rusty armor, their skill still echoes through their every swing of the sword.

But wait, there’s more!

We’ll conclude our presentation of the ancient dead in next week’s dev blog with the overhauled vampire, as well as the introduction of an entirely new enemy to fight against. How exciting!

[Neonivek]

Will the Ancient Legion be their own faction or will they be teamed up with the typical undead? I don't picture them getting along personally...

I do actually like the concept though. Roman soldiers with their tight formations on dead bodies.