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[Hanzoku]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058430/A_Legionarys_Life/

I've been playing this one for a little while, and I've been enjoying it. It's a nice change in that you're definitely not the main hero, and you're not expected to slaughter hordes of mooks. After all, you start as an untrained mook yourself.

I've mostly played on an earlier update, where the first two campaigns are playable, but a recent update just came out where the full game is now playable (despite the low version number, its not an alpha build.)

Expect to die early and often as you get a feel for the game. Its better to remain in the ranks rather then take risks. Every time you die or retire, you receive points for your deeds, rank and fate, and these can be made to make your next character better, through better stats, better starting equipment, or more starting funds.

A few tips:
I tend to focus on mental stats. You can reroll as often as you want for your starting stats. I tend to play with something near 70 charisma and int, and around 50 for physical stats.

50 represents the baseline in this game. 60 is pretty good, and 70 is exceptional.

Upgrading your skills is important, as is getting along with your fellow legionaries. Being in good standing with them unlocks training with more experienced partners, which has more consistent skill gains.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Yas, a thread for this game!

One of my favs, and I have countless playthroughs. Just finished the third campaign as well, very exciting!

[Farce]

I was gonna say halfway though the trailer's music sounded a LOT like the airship theme from Super Mario 3, but apparently that's just taken from something else too so I guess that's cool.

This looks neat though, dunno if I would have found it without seeing it here first.

[Majestic7]

Hey Hanzoku, thanks for making a thread. I had never heard about this game otherwise. Seems like a very interesting indie gem, bought.

[Farce]

Man I suck at combat.  Seems like I just spam feints until the timer runs down, and then later when I'm actually like moderately threatening I wait 'till they try a hit, go super aggro and try a charge to just totally delete whatever stance they have, and just smack whatever I can until they recover.  It works real nice against people I already outmatch but not so much with even-or-stronger guys.

My second guy had a pretty successful career, managed to make it to the second campaign, starting it as a Rear Centurion or something, but then apparently he went crazy, because he dueled some dumb kid and felt super bad about it, and then sprinted into a melee against a huge mob by himself when he wasn't actually really that strong of a fighter.

[Hanzoku]

A good basic defensive method to make it through the combats where you rotate is:

1) Switch your stance to neutral and recover stance or stamina until the other guy attacks and misses. Goto 2
2) Switch your stance to aggressive and Quick feint. If it hits AND the other guy fails to recover Goto3. If he recovers, Goto 1.
3) Shield bash. If he fails to recover, Goto 4. If he recovers, Repeat 3. If you miss, Goto 1.
4) Stab him in the neck until he dies.

Once your sword skill is past 60, you can actually hit people fairly consistently if they aren't elite. A lot of the enemies you face are light infantry, and they have either no chest armor or helmet, or crap chest armor. So you can just spam attacking their chest or head until you stab them to death.

You have 3 big purchases you need to make.

1 - pick up a sword with a higher minimum damage - this will generally be a 3/3 Gladius.
2 - Pick up greaves. These cost around 80 coins.
3 - Pick up first a breastplate/backplate (80 coins) and later buy a set of chainmail (1000-1200 coins). Its expensive, but it keeps your junk unstabbed along with your torso.

My most successful career had the guy survive all three campaigns. He became a senator in Rome, served as the Quaestor and Aedile and otherwise had a pretty awesome life. He died shortly after Rome burned Carthage to the ground.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So, you can min-max as much as you want.

Stats wise, awareness, quickness, and coordination are the most important to AVOIDING damage. You may not be able to duel everyone, but you can def make it through any campaign with high rolls/training in those stats.

The rule of thumb is to be as defensive as possible, if you have super high strength you can just kind of knock peoples defenses aside, but other than that the cycle is

wait to be attacked (so they lose stance)

exploit stance loss with a feint(s) <----- longest stage

possibly charge or shield bash

go crazy on attacking

if you are reeling dont be afraid to go defensive and recover stance, just survivng certain engagements (like the volunteer assault on the Nova Carthago citadel) will grant you some much needed skill increases.

Finally, if you have the patience and morale for it, you can exhaust opponents (useful if you've bitten off too much to chew in a duel), and once theyre entirely exhausted you can lower their stance (which will be nearly impossible to recover at that point) and grant them death by a thousand cuts.

The difficulty has been changed from past versions, but there were some fights I avoided even with a guy who had 75+ in all stats.

Also, in terms of skills, its pretty important to raise your sword and shield about +5 at every rest period (reward skill points will greatly shorten the time needed to accomplish this).

EDIT: Also be aware of how equipment affects your stats!

[Il Palazzo]

It's a fun game, but with limited replay value. After 7 games I've seen most of the content. Got into the senate, killed the Bulwark and the Chiliarch, broke through the phalanx once. Never managed a mural crown (my best shot was 44 rounds, but it wasn't enough), nor did I get promoted to consul - but I've no desire to slog through the campaign again just to get the achievements.
On the other hand, that's 16 hours - according to Steam - for 8-ish dollars worth. It's good value for money.

I've never figured out what good is all that money I was earning for. There's just not that much to spend it on and I don't think it factors into final score.

My personal tips:
- coordination is the most important physical stat, imo. You want to be able to recover stance as soon as possible. Endurance is second, so start with swimming workouts.
- mental stats are good for later playthroughs, when you'll want to raise through the ranks and get better endings. The first few runs are just fine as a dumb brute.
- don't get into trouble at first. Try getting through the campaign as a regular soldier - this'll get you character points to spend on your further characters.
- when facing harder opponents without time limit (i.e. duelling leaders etc.) you can make up the skill difference by focusing on defence (one pip, two drains morale too fast) and taking respite, while your opponent exhausts himself. Change to aggressive/neutral and try some easy attack whenever they miss badly, to stave off morale loss.
- study armour values so that you know their weaknesses. Breastplates can stop most direct hits, but leave the groin exposed. Linen armour can be punched through with a good sword and respectable strength, with only minor damage loss. If nothing else works - arms are always unprotected, so you can slowly nibble on the appendages.
- when facing much weaker opponents and time is of the essence (e.g. when storming the walls), you can sometimes forfeit stance recovery altogether and just chop at their torsos for easy damage. With good sword skill you should be able to hit with over 50% chance anyway.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Also as a sidenote, Id love to see this combat/skill/stat system in a freeroam RPG. I know this inspired by Age of Decadence, but something a little more... idk hardcore I guess.

[Farce]

Finally managed to whip those 5 guys in the second campaign - they've ended like three runs because I'm dumb and keep picking a fight with them - and then I die to the guy right after.

I manage to knock his ass out and chop up his legs up so he's at half health like I am from the 5-man fight, but then he just pulls three hits on my arms out of his ass when I'm at full stance, defense intent, everything.  Both of us were hovering at like 70ish weapon/defense skill I think, him maybe a little higher, but STILL.

Really should just go as a guy who just keeps his head down and try to get through the whole thing.

[Ghazkull]

Best run so far Centurion Prior with a citizen crown and a mural crown dying on some forgotten hillside in macedonia to a tiny, wiry macedonian peltast...why did i pick a duel with that asshat? ;_;

[Il Palazzo]

a mural crown

How many rounds did it take, and what was your approach?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Best run so far Centurion Prior with a citizen crown and a mural crown dying on some forgotten hillside in macedonia to a tiny, wiry macedonian peltast...why did i pick a duel with that asshat? ;_;

That guy is hard. He proved a challenge even with a centurion with 75+ in everything.

Finally managed to whip those 5 guys in the second campaign - they've ended like three runs because I'm dumb and keep picking a fight with them - and then I die to the guy right after.

I manage to knock his ass out and chop up his legs up so he's at half health like I am from the 5-man fight, but then he just pulls three hits on my arms out of his ass when I'm at full stance, defense intent, everything.  Both of us were hovering at like 70ish weapon/defense skill I think, him maybe a little higher, but STILL.

Really should just go as a guy who just keeps his head down and try to get through the whole thing.

Which is the guy after the 5 man fight? Is that the gallic Chieftain? Cuz he is also bananas tough.

a mural crown

How many rounds did it take, and what was your approach?

There's a bunch of Mural Crowns now, but in the African Campaign, I think its something like ~38 rounds? Possibly a lot less.

[Ghazkull]

a mural crown

How many rounds did it take, and what was your approach?

First of all the only time i find it feasible to take one is on the African Campaign in Utica.
In later missions taking the crown becomes harder mostly because they put tougher troops in the same numbers there.
Also being a Centurion and having your troops help changes nothing at all so yeah doesnt matter what rank you are, difficulty stays the same.
As for turns, i believe it took 38-39 turns?
As for the approach, i think it was mentioned above already, the militiamen have almost no armor so hacking away at the torso is perfectly fine, if theyre really unbalanced going for the head is also viable in terms of damage to hit-chance ratio. The jugular is simply not worth it, at least not in these timed battles.
Only recover if you have the 100% chance afford by some enemy also recovering and always stay aggressive, by the point you get to Utica the militamen are barely able to take you down anyway.
Most important thing is luck. No tactic and no strategy will help you if RNG fucks ya over. Really, just alt+f4 out if you have to. I had runs where i was recovering for 20 turns because i always failed the checks...

[Cthulhu]

Survived the first campaign on my second run, died in an ambush when I decided to charge the leader and had to fight two Libyan spearmen at once. 

Are the events fixed?  Both of the runs had the exact same series of events in the first campaign.  I hope they eventually become random in the full version, cause that's kind of a killer for replay value, especially since there doesn't seem to be much variability in combat.  The heuristic listed above got me through pretty much every 1v1 fight.