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[Anvilfolk]

Furthermore, a mechanic to maybe retire old and injured mercs would be good so you do not just disband them at some point. Maybe this could then increase the fame/reputation of your company... just thinking out loud here.

That makes a lot of sense! I like it! In Mordheim you just get rid of them... it's kind of silly. And yes, absolutely, you'd need a system (like in Mordheim!) where mercenaries stay out of fights and heal for a while. Managing that is an interesting part of Mordheim! The campaign system is generally pretty interesting - the fights? Much less so! A Mordheim-like campaign with Battle Brothers tactical battles would be amazing.


I think the decision of when to retire can be made pretty interesting. For instance, an old grizzled mercenary is losing their edge. Do you retire them now for a decent amount of reputation/fame, or do you try keeping them alive a few more battles so you can increase the amount of reputation/fame they'll be able to bring you?

Since we're in the "throwing ideas out there" stage, retiring a seasoned professional could give you an immediate attempt at recruiting a relatively experienced merc for cheaper. This way, you wouldn't replace a veteran with a complete newbie, and it could ease the player's annoyance at losing a good mercenary.


I also wonder if there's a way to make experienced mercenaries not just become outright worse at fighting because of injuries, until you have to retire them because they are useless. Perhaps the later levels could unlock more support perks/skills, so that the veteran's experience could be applied to other members of the company? Maybe veterans of 20+ battles gave a morale aura automatically to people around them? Things like that.

[ThtblovesDF]

Auto leveling the world seems silly, just wander off into the distance forest of murder-ogre-goblin-pileup if you desire a bigger fight - allowing the player to scale on there own is a good choice. IF I could mod, i'd add that you can keep leveling for near-worthless small buffs - OR maybe after your veteran gathers enough xp (about as much as it'd take him to level again) he can bestow that upon a recuit in training to give that guy a levelup.

[Anvilfolk]

OR maybe after your veteran gathers enough xp (about as much as it'd take him to level again) he can bestow that upon a recuit in training to give that guy a levelup.

Oh hey, this is a cool idea. I like it. Together with the injury system, there'd be a legit reason for keeping seasoned professionals around. Their experience would just transfer to newer units, through "training" or whatever.

[Cthulhu]

I was just on a black company binge a couple weeks ago, how did I miss this?  It definitely gets the feel right, just recruited a gaggle of randoms and did the first bandit mission.  Reimar the Betrayer was a good buy, a deserter who's still got his military gear.  The rest are mostly arrow fodder and maybe I should use them that way if I don't want to try and cultivate them.  Lost the miner, but he was useless anyway.

Edit:  Reimar's definitely made of some stern stuff.  He's all that's left, all my companions are dead and the recruits didn't stand a chance.  And yet the band survived, and got 855 gold for our travails.  As long as one survives we'll rebuild.

Edit2:  None survived.  Took on an orc contract cause we were out of money and had nothing else going for us.  Everybody dies.  An orc chopped right through the stern stuff of Reimar's neck.

Decided to play on Even difficulty instead, though I'm torn.  On one hand, the only thing that changes is the money and stuff, so it's not like I'm making the combat easier. It's still a meat grinder for the recruits.

Digression:  There's a suggestion for you.  Some kind of "seeing the elephant" mechanic where the recruits who haven't had any experience with violence in their backstories have dramatic trait and stat changes on their first couple combats, to simulate the baptism by fire and nail down the recruit stuff mentioned in the intro:  Some guys find out they were born for this, some want out the moment they see a guy's arm off, most are somewhere in between, but everybody's different when they leave their first fight. You might see a guy gain a new trait and some stats, or he might cut and run or fall apart in the middle of the battle.  Some of that's already in but it seems like it'd be more intense in a guy's first taste of battle

I guess that kind of thing will be more apparent when my guys are higher level and fighting harder enemies, so the recruits are more obviously green compared to the veterans.

Anyway, what was I talking about?  Oh.  On one hand, the only thing that changes is the money and stuff so it's not like I'm making the combat easier.  But on the other hand, the only thing that changes is the money and stuff so why bother?  I felt like the change was a little too dramatic.  On Challenging I was scrabbling for every scrap of leather I could throw on my guys and finding a real weapon on a dead bandit was a godsend, then I switched to Even and I barely have to worry about money and supplies at all.

Oh, also, dogs are awesome, I love the way they work.  I stuck them on my archers since they're usually flanking and can get the dogs past the main fight and onto archers and runners.  Even if he kills it, 150 gold to shut down arrows for a few turns is worth every penny.


This is starting to get long-winded, but one more thing.  More of a question.  What do people think of two-handed weapons?  I'm really torn.  The shieldbreaking is a lifesaver, but they almost never survive a single mission.  maybe I'm using htem wrong.

[Jaysen]

@Cthulhu:
We have something like the baptism by fire planned but it will be handled through out event system

You might want to mostly keep the two handed guys on elevated postions with strong armor and never engage more than one enemy. This is until they get some perks and armor to help them survive longer. But there is of course way more to this ^^

Here is this weeks blog update introducing Oceans and Sea Travel! And vote for us on IndieDB

Dev Blog #64: Progress Update - Oceans and Sea Travel

Ever wondered why there is no big body of water in the world of Battle Brothers? Well, wonder no more because now there is! And you can even fast travel from port to port for a small fee to cut down on those long pilgrimages. Let’s check out the details!

Ocean and Coast Lines

A while ago we talked about how we want to reshape the geography of the world of Battle Brothers. How we'll have both land and sea for an actual continent and smaller islands off the coast. In short, a more believable and varied looking world to play in. If you missed the original announcement back then, you can read up on it here. With this in mind, our focus turned towards the ocean and the coast this week.



Creating a coastline that fits well into our hex-based tile system, looks nice and integrates seamlessly with all kinds of different terrain we now have was a surprisingly nerve-wracking endeavour for our artist. After a long process of trial and error, and experimenting with a wide range of brushes and textures, we now have an actual shoreline along the coast where ocean meets land. With that established we can go further to add various details, like driftwood and rocks, to make the coast look more varied. At the same time we're looking into animated waves for the ocean in order to make the worldmap feel more alive than before.

Fast Travel by Sea

Not only makes the ocean for more interesting geography, it also makes for natural barriers for travel. In fact, some settlements on islands off the coast can't even be reached by foot. To make these accessible, and to cut down on travel time across the world in a way that integrates well with the setting, we've added fast travel by boat this week.



Coastal settlements, whether a small fishing village or a mighty castle by the sea, come with docks which can be accessed from the settlement screen. Here you'll be able to browse through available routes and board a ship for a small fee (depending on distance and the number of men in your employ) to fast travel to another settlement with sea access.

IndieDB Indiegame of the Year: Vote for us!

The well known website IndieDB is hosting their Indiegame of the year voting 2015 right now and Battle Brothers already made it into the top 100! The voting continues until the 20th of December so all of you have the chance to cast a vote for us. Please head over to IndieDB and throw a vote our way - and while you are at it, tell your friends about it. You can follow this LINK. Thanks so much for supporting us!

[Cthulhu]

That's a good plan.  Though I've kind of switched my two-handers over to running down archers now that I've discovered the joy of handaxes. 

I've gone pretty much full defense, every basic merc gets a shield and a one-handed weapon and his first two perks are always the shield boost and the shield durability, after that I dunno, haven't gotten that far. 

I do love how strong shields are.  I feel like a lot of games fail to appreciate the defensive power of a big slab of dense wood between you and the bad guy.

[Kagus]

Aaaaaand then a berserker comes along and sneezes at your shield, causing it to run away and leave you there, scared and alone.

Yeah, shields are awesome. I've just learned a few times what happens when you put too much faith in them...  Or too much faith in anything, really.  Death comes for us all.

[cider]

This game is awesome, and I mean it. A good concept executed in a brilliant way, and the artist ('cus there's only one, from what I've gathered?) does som very solid work. I'm looking forward to the update a great deal!

[Crazy Horse]

Aaaaaand then a berserker comes along and sneezes at your shield, causing it to run away and leave you there, scared and alone.

Yeah, shields are awesome. I've just learned a few times what happens when you put too much faith in them...  Or too much faith in anything, really.  Death comes for us all.

Utility tree is helpful here. A second shield for no AP or weight penalty is worthwhile against nasty orcses. Just a great tree to heavily invest in all in all. Having your battle-line all able to swap out with each other prevents casualties and gives more interesting tactical options. IRRC there's one or two indispensable traits in the tier 1 defence tree and naturally archers need offence but other than that utility is the bee's knees. It is nice to have a token berserker for style points though.

[Cthulhu]

Aaaaaand then a berserker comes along and sneezes at your shield, causing it to run away and leave you there, scared and alone.

Yeah, shields are awesome. I've just learned a few times what happens when you put too much faith in them...  Or too much faith in anything, really.  Death comes for us all.

Or, alternatively, he could have used that attack to kill you instead. 

Even if the shield means surviving one attack that would've killed you, that's huge. 

I dunno where to put my points.  Every line trooper gets shield boost and shield durability, past that most people don't survive anyway.

[Retropunch]

Just a few thoughts on what's been mentioned:

@leveling: I really hate level caps, you end up feeling as though you've come to an end in terms of meaningful progress with them. I'd suggest, as mentioned before, that the player gets to pick one of two minor perks at each level up. These would only be things like +1hp or +1% dodge, but they'd allow you to move your characters on in the way you prefer, without it throwing the balance off too much.

@baptism by fire: I do really like the idea of rookies being negatively effected by their first few combats, but it sounds as though it'd make them even more useless than they are already. An event system sounds good, or perhaps you can only unlock some particular skill after a certain number of fights (as an analogue of them finding their niche)

[ventuswings]

New Video showing all the changes discussed posted few hours ago, if anyone is interested. Apparently the projected release date is in February.

[symonthewise]

I was cautiously optimistic about battle brothers, unsure of how it would develop, but with the recent updates its looking really fantastic.

Congrats comrades.

[Retropunch]

Great video - really well put together.

One thing I've been thinking alot about is that I feel that the explorable locations need to be a bit clearer on the map. It's really quite difficult to know what's a special/proper location and what is just a bit of the background.

I'm not sure the best way to show them more, especially as the art style is so fluid, but I'd suggest some sort of marker so that the player knows whether or not they it's a visitable place or just a bit of the scenery.

[Jaysen]

New year new dev blogs! The big worldmap update is planned for February by the way

Dev Blog #66: Progress Update – Putting the Pieces Together
The holidays are over and it’s back to work! This week we started putting all the pieces we have been creating over the past months together so that we can start playtesting and balancing all the new additions for the update in February.

Populating the world

Reworking the worldmap feels a bit like taking a machine apart and putting it back together. We started again at the beginning, improving the layout and terrain of the world, adding more interesting and unique settlements, and creating a more complex web of different factions. Now is the time to populate the world again and let the inhabitants roam the world.

Speaking of population, the world now has more clearly defined regions than before. There's the densely populated areas between settlements that belong to noble houses - you'll find bandits there every now and then, and the odd beast may find its way there, but it's a lot safer than the regions bordering on the wild. The wild is largely covered in fog at the beginning of the game and for you to explore. It's home to Orcs, Goblins and worse, and not somewhere you should venture out to before you got some experience under your belt.



Hostile locations on the worldmap received a graphical overhaul, and some, like the large camps of Goblins and Orcs, got redone. This is because we want to give both Orcs and Goblins more identity in accordance with their lore in the world of Battle Brothers. Orcs, for example, are now actually the nomads they're supposed to be; they live in tents because they may at any time pack their things, migrate as a large horde to somewhere else (hopefully not near human settlements!) and put down their tents there to raid anything in the vicinity.

Another change is that there is no real distinction anymore between inactive and active hostile locations, as was the case in previous versions. Every location now can send out parties for hunting, raiding and similar, although smaller locations do so less and in fewer numbers, and some factions may be more passive than others. You may find Ghouls hovering around old battlefields and graveyards, or Vampires taking a stroll at night, but the undead are generally content sitting in their crypts and guarding their treasures.



While parties roaming the world will feel familiar if you've played previous versions of the game, there have been some improvements and additions. Caravans, for example, now actually carry the produce of the settlements that send them, it can get taken by raiders (from which you in turn can take it) or unloaded at marketplaces of the settlements that caravans reach, for you to buy there. Noble houses patrol their roads and shuffle troops between their outposts, and they're generally more formidable than the generic Landsknechts of old. Ships now also sail between coastal settlements, transporting goods and passengers.

Loot & Treasure Locations

Because looting golden chalices, ornate tomes and gemstones feels more satisfying than mundane money every time, we’ve added a number of loot items for you to plunder. Those are largely cosmetic, but they also serve another feature we’re introducing: treasure locations. You may find treasure at all kinds of locations, of course, but there’s now a few locations well-hidden and littered around the world that contain vast amounts of treasure, including pieces of unique equipment.



You may stumble upon these locations by yourself, or you may follow rumors and leads you pick up around the world. We’ll talk more about treasure locations and rumors in a future update together with the introduction of taverns.