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[Jaysen]

Perhaps in the future we can get support characters that don't take part in combat, but say, have a chance to save the life of a "killed" battle brother (maybe with some permanent damage).

Here is a quick list of the features we want to implement over the Early Access:

COMING FEATURES

- Worldmap story and progression mechanic.
- Non-combat characters for your mercenary company. (-> here will be scouts, healers, blacksmiths and so on)
- Scavenger-hunts for legendary artifacts.
- A dynamic event system with atmospheric encounters and tough decisions outside of combat.
- Indoor tactical combat environments, such as dungeons.
- A fully skinned UI.
- More content: More enemies, terrain types, items, contracts, character backgrounds and at least one additional major enemy faction acting in the world.

[Majestic7]

I presume you will eventually add political factions so there will be fighting between settlements and militaries too? Perhaps we can even get our own settlement, colonizing a place or adopting a forsaken village... Would be nice.

[gimli]

Perhaps in the future we can get support characters that don't take part in combat, but say, have a chance to save the life of a "killed" battle brother (maybe with some permanent damage).

Here is a quick list of the features we want to implement over the Early Access:

COMING FEATURES

- Worldmap story and progression mechanic.
- Non-combat characters for your mercenary company. (-> here will be scouts, healers, blacksmiths and so on)
- Scavenger-hunts for legendary artifacts.
- A dynamic event system with atmospheric encounters and tough decisions outside of combat.
- Indoor tactical combat environments, such as dungeons.
- A fully skinned UI.
- More content: More enemies, terrain types, items, contracts, character backgrounds and at least one additional major enemy faction acting in the world.

Nice, nice! 

[Sharp]

Well I eventually got the Early Access and played quite a few hours of it and I am enjoying it.

I think I have a good strategy of having 5 archers and the rest being a shieldwall mixed with axes and hammers, also the archers carry pikes/halberds and I get them the perk to swap weapons once free per turn. Unfortunately though for many of my front line troops I have neglected upgrading their max fatigue so now I have high end armour which means they can only do a few actions, I am thinking of maybe just using less fatigue draining armour and relying on shieldwall and melee defence instead of taking hits but then the lucky hit gets through and is normally an instakill.

Also Orc Warriors are hard, ran into a big group of 6 warriors 4 young orcs and a beserker and lost 3 high level guys while 3 others were heavily wounded. My tactic is harder to work when the Orcs can tank a lot more hits and then get flanks and their stun charge and shield bash move ability can wreck my battle-line.

Think I need to start a new campaign and give fatigue a bit more love, and maybe run away from Orcs until I get a nice band of high level brothers.

Apart from Orcs though I have been waltzing through the rest of the enemies, although I haven't got much undead nearby, been to all the villages and only ran into a skeleton patrol while razing a bandit camp on the outskirts. Werewolves die easily to arrows and bandits aren't too hard, but I have been lucky and only had one group which had a lot of marksmen but it was in thick forest so easier to ambush them into melee range.

Can't wait for more updates and more contracts

[Majestic7]

Are there any plans to add mounted combat? It seems like an obvious thing that the game lacks. It would be nice if mounted warriors took two slots on the map or something, though I'm not sure if that is possible with your chosen game mechanics. If it is, that would be a nice twist to some big monsters too.

[Jaysen]

Mounts have been requested quite a lot but we are rather reluctant to put them in the game. The whole game is designed about small unit tactics and skirmishes in rather rough terrain. Adding mounts would push this a whole lot into a larger scale combat simulation and does not fit the scope of the game. On top of that there are technical difficulties as the combat mechanics and the graphics are not made to incorporate mounts.

BUT we have mounted enemies planned, i believe there is already a screenshot of one of them out there. They will come with a completely new faction. We will see how this plays out and then come back to mounts for the player at some point. So we do not want to knock it out of the air completely at this point.

[Majestic7]

Small mounted skirmishes aren't that unrealistic, but I agree that horsies should be a liability in a very rough terrain. Likewise, in order to fight effectively mounted, a Battle Brother should sacrifice some skill points / traits into it. Fighting as mounted infantry - riding into battle but fighting on foot - should still be available, though. I guess that would show as increased map speed on good terrain, but appearing on the battlefield without a horse.

[Jaysen]

Yeah, adding mobility options to the worldmap is a completely different story. Here we have a lot of freedom in what we can put in it. We plan on giving the player a mercenary "treck" that can be customized and that will also accompany non-combat companions or advisors if you will. However, this is heavily under development so i can not give you a detailed description on how it will work right now.

[gimli]

It would be good to have some statistical panel or something like that. It should track the number of kills/oppoment type [ex.: Olaf has killed 12 werewolves, 6 bandits etc.], the biggest hit landed/received etc. etc. You got the picture. It could also act as a "graveyard". That way we could check our dead mercs and their stats as well.

[Jaysen]

Yes, we have a statistics panel just like that but only after each combat. Should not be that big of a deal to add a total panel as well although i have to admit that it is not that high on our neverending list of to dos

A graveyard is definitely planned, a bit like the wall of heroes in the new Xcom

[gimli]

I am glad to hear this! Little cosmetical features like these are enhancing the diversity of the game, which is always a good thing.

[Jaysen]

Here is a little update for all who want to know what we are up to. We will be able to go full-time on the project - so Yay for that! More details and a small roadmap in the latest progress update:

Dev Blog #42: Progress Update - Going Full Time and A Small Roadmap

Time for some good news!

It’s been more than three weeks now since Battle Brothers released into Early Access and so far it has been pretty successful. The game was well received and we got a lot of helpful feedback from all of you, much of which we’ll incorporate into the game over the course of the next year. There is a lot still left to do, of course, but things are looking bright.

The game has also been a financial success for us. As you may be aware, Battle Brothers was developed by a core team of just 3 people over the course of nearly 2 years in their spare time while also working day jobs. The recent success now allows us to quit our day jobs and start working fulltime on Battle Brothers. That’s right, we’re about to have a lot more time we can put into the game and should be able to make progress much faster than before!

The downside for now is that quitting our day jobs and going full time is not something we can do over night. As you may know from experience yourselves, changing jobs always comes with a lot of organizational hurdles. Getting legal stuff out of the way, setting up new workplaces, doing a clean handover for you former job, existing contractual obligations, and so on. We are looking at a transitional period  that will keep us pretty busy over the next couple of weeks.

During these next weeks we won’t be able to make much progress on the game itself and provide you with updates as frequently as before. It’s all worth it, however, because once things are settled, the game should progress at a much faster pace than in the 2 years before, and we’re already looking forward to really get going!

A big thank you to all of you who made this, our dream of working on our very own game, possible! And an extra big thank you to those of you who supported us even more by getting the Supporter Edition!

A Small Roadmap

To give you a better idea of our immediate plans, once we have settled into working full time on Battle Brothers, we also want to share a small roadmap with you.

1) Event System
As explained in our last blog post, our next immediate goal is the addition of the event system to add interesting encounters and tough decisions outside of combat, as well as laying the foundations for dialog and a future rework of the contract system. Because a lot of events will change depending on what backgrounds or traits your Battle Brothers have, it'll also add a layer of complexity to character backgrounds beyond just their different stats.

2) Goblins
Next up are Goblins. Those are the green skinned cousins of the orcs that have an entirely different fighting style. While orcs rely on physical prowess and brute-forcing their way through your ranks, goblins lack the physical power to do so. In fact, they’re quite fragile individually, more so than your average Battle Brother. In battle they rely on their wits and dirty tricks instead, preferring to fight at range. Goblins come with their own arsenal of unique weaponry and skills - throwing nets to incapacitate their enemies, arrows with terrible poison and long jagged pikes. Goblins should add an entirely new challenge to combat in Battle Brothers and are also meant to be a missing piece of the puzzle that is game balance by making ranged combat more important. No longer is the nimble swordmaster safe from all danger!



3) Rework of the Worldmap
The third and by far largest step on our immediate roadmap is a rework of the worldmap as a whole. It’s quite clear that the world simulation, as it is now, is not satisfactory. With the resources available to us now and the lessons learned so far, we’re going to design new gameplay around commandeering a mercenary company in a low-fantasy medieval world. We already have a solid concept for this, and we’ll update you once things are further along. Yes, there will be multiple human factions working against each other. And yes, we’ll make contracts a lot more interesting and dynamic.

[Anvilfolk]

Aw yiss!

Congratulations on the recent financial success! I'm sure it's a big change, in both your professional and personal lives. I hope things will work out for the best!

Can't wait to see where Battle Brothers goes!

[Jaysen]

Thanks!
It acutally was a really tough decision to quit my job because it is still a pretty big risk we take here - but i think it will work!

[Sharp]

So I guess it's too late for reviews to start with 'Don't quit your day job' ?

I am just kidding, love the game and very eager to see where it goes. I am looking forward to the goblins but also dreading it a bit, I have had horrible times dealing with lots of bandit marksmen in open areas but they are pretty rare.