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[Hotfire90]

It should work, however there is no good reason to give your polearm users that perk, they generally don't benefit from it.

[Majestic7]

Why wouldn't they benefit? It increases defences once you score a hit, doesn't it? Of course, polearms generally have just one attack per round.

[Hotfire90]

Polearm users normally hang out in the back line, now with the update all polearms have a -15% chance to hit an enemy adjacent to them unless they have the respective weapon perk.
The perk gives +5 melee defense for each hit, which means that they don't benefit from the perk at all, unless they're either adjacent to an enemy or are within 2 tiles of an enemy polearm user.

[Persus13]

Also, I hate fighting alps. They're the worst.

I, too, often suffer difficulty when fighting mountains.

I think I'd rather fight mountains.

Dog swarms are the way to go with dreamsnatchers.

Anyone know if the perk "reach advantage" works with pikes? They are two-handed, but I wonder if it only applies to greatswords and stuff.

Thanks for the tip. I have a couple now, but I didn't the first time I fought them. Spacing out your guys also works pretty well, because then they can only get one at a time.

[Majestic7]

Polearm users normally hang out in the back line, now with the update all polearms have a -15% chance to hit an enemy adjacent to them unless they have the respective weapon perk.
The perk gives +5 melee defense for each hit, which means that they don't benefit from the perk at all, unless they're either adjacent to an enemy or are within 2 tiles of an enemy polearm user.

Dunno, I have two pikes in my battleline and they always get enemies at their face eventually.

[Yoink]

So, starting a new game on Ironman mode immediately quietened much of my frustration. What's the point in getting worked up about bullshit if there's nothing you can do about it anyway? I have no idea what to do against swarms of archers. I think in my next run (well, this was more like a painful, awkward stumble followed by a nasty faceplant) I'll just cram a shitload of archers behind a shield wall and see how that goes.


In other news, the attacks of opportunity mechanic is really poorly implemented. Good grief.
Getting murdered by archers and arrow spam is one thing, I mean, that's just realistic... but this? Argh. It's like everyone has that daft Combat Reflexes DnD perk or whatever.   
I might need to get some sleep before I jump back into it. That or make a coffee... a strong coffee.   

[Majestic7]

There are two perks to deal with attacks of opportunity, one lets you switch places with a buddy and the other lets you move one square. I don't really use them other than with archers, though. Although they'd be nice to move dying melee guys out of harms way...

When facing archers, you need shield dudes. Put guys without shields the square right behind the shield dudes while advancing, that way the shield dudes will protect them from arrows. Swarm of dogs can deal with archers as well, though it gets expensive if they die a lot.

I usually run four archers (two bows and two crossbows), two polearms and the rest shields and one-handers.

[Persus13]

Well this game has been consuming my weekend. Been really enjoying though. Its a lot more intuitive than I thought it would be.

I'll second the tip about shields. Most of your guys should have them, and they'll protect you from the main enemy line while your archers, polearms, and two-handers do the work. If you have lots of spears too, you'll have battlefield as well. Best way to kill archers I've found is use my own.

Started with a couple of two-handers too, but I transitioned my starting two-hander to holding the battle standard instead.

[Mephansteras]

Yup, shields and your own archers is the #1 way to deal with enemy archers. You can also try to time your battles to be at night instead of during the day if you think you'll be outgunned (Marksmen are scary accurate). I also like to have a flanker. If you get a guy around the edges to come at the archers from the side they'll usually try to run from them, which keeps them from doing much damage. Or they shoot that guy full of arrows. Flankers are expendable. Give them a kite shield if you can, it'll help.

Another note is that you can run from a battle and try again to see if you get better terrain. If the enemy archers have the high ground and you can't easily get to their level, just don't even try that fight. Fall back and see if you can get better odds next time.

As for the attack of opportunity thing...based on my actual armored combat experience it's about right. If you're up close to someone and they try to move away, you're going to get a shot on them. Having shield wall up helps with that, but mostly you just learn not to try and disengage unless you absolutely have to. Or you move them first. Shield bash is an option for anyone with a shield, so you can always just have someone else on the line try to knock the opponent away to give someone a chance to escape. Some polearms, like the pitchfork, also give you the ability to move people around.

Giving every person on your shield line Rotate as an ability is a pretty good idea, lets you move people in and out of the danger zones as needed. Works well with your backline pole users, too. Disengage is nice, but high enough level that I mostly give that to archers and other backline folks without shields. Your shield line is there to take the attacks so the rest of your squad doesn't have to. The backline's job is to kill people. I build my mercs out accordingly for stats and perks.

[Yoink]

When I've tried flanking... the archers generally skedaddle whilst still finding the time to pause and keep riddling my main force with arrows, leaving my poor flanker standing around holding his dick.

I think I wanna play around with a frontline of shields+spears... just wall up, then pepper the enemy with arrows/bolts/other projectiles from behind so they have no choice but to run into the grinder.
Spearwall is one thing that I've found that seems to be actually OP in the player's favour, amazingly enough. I had this one low-level twerp with just a spear on one end of my shield wall and he was tearing arse for a while there until he, well, died somehow. *shrug*


Apparently my last game made it to Day 34. No idea if that's good or not?
Never had any spare money, so most of that was spent in constant action. I think I really should have picked the "make 2k to buy a flag" mission instead of the other one, as stupid as it sounds... but oh well. I kind of lost the will to go on when the bulk of my dudes died and one of my favourites, this straw-hat-wearing dude with some amusingly menial background who'd become one of my most reliable people, with his throwing knives and whacking stick, decided this life was not for him and quit.

Maybe this group will do better! It's hard to find the time to roam around trying to visit places when you have the constant worry of making money for food and pay.   


Edit: do contracts generally tend to get more dangerous the further you get from your starting location?
'Cause I just jumped on a boat to somewhere far to the south and I kinda have a bad feeling about this bandit island I've been sent to deal with...   

[Ai Shizuka]

Edit: do contracts generally tend to get more dangerous the further you get from your starting location?
'Cause I just jumped on a boat to somewhere far to the south and I kinda have a bad feeling about this bandit island I've been sent to deal with...   

Starting location of the contract doesn't matter. The starting location is just a randomly selected area.
Contract skulls give you an idea of the difficulty but, most importantly, look at the reward. More money means a harder contract, even if the skull indicator is the same.
Also, read the description. Early contracts against goblins can be brutal, even if the payment is shit.

Early game: avoid goblins and avoid caravans.


Now I guess I'll have to buy the expansion and get the new achievements. BB was one of my few 100% games on steam.

[Majestic7]

Caravan missions are okay when you are going to switch locales anyway, same to get paid for that. But usually they pay shittily as something to do for money.

REgarding shield walls, battleline and archers is a solid build to deal with humans and orcs. You will run into trouble with it when facing alps and goblins though, since they refuse to engage and will just fuck you from afar. When facing undead backed by a necromancer, you might get overwhelmed since the dead will keep rising and they don't take fatigue like your guys.

So in addition to a battleline, you need mobility options when facing these kind of foes... or you need to avoid them like the plague.

[Yoink]

Funnily enough, of every caravan mission I've done only one time have we actually been attacked. Usually if I even see any hostiles on the world map, they're busy attacking peasants, other caravans, or simply ignoring us - once I had an enemy group just pass straight through us without stopping.

Also the one time I came across a bunch of soldiers in combat with goblins and decided to help was pretty messy. Those jerks sure took their time in getting involved. We were supposed to be rescuing them, damnit!

I'm a couple of games later, now, haha.
That "bandit island" attack I mentioned earlier did end up wiping out my band, but not so much due to the actual difficulty as to extreme bad luck. And archers. And attacks of opportunity. -_-
Also I never noticed the skulls on contracts, or considered their meaning. Whoa.   

[Majestic7]

I've never had attacks on caravan in the current version either, it is just a way to move from one point of map to another while getting paid for it. I think the brigands are scared of the combined size of caravan and your band.

I think the game has problems with contract scaling, easy contracts change too fast into three skull ones. I think there should be a mix of contracts available at all times from very easy to very hard. So if you get your ass kicked, you can chase easy contracts for a while. Soon you are just offered contracts to fight lindwurm and whatnot, which is very hard even for a full veteran band.

[Kagus]

See, that's just it... Caravans are free and uneventful money, right up until a swarm of vampires comes charging out of the treeline and it suddenly isn't free money anymore.