Battle Brothers Hits Early Access

I haven’t found an answer to this question but we don’t have long to wait. One thing I hope they get to fairly soon is enabling mod support. The possibilities for this game are large.

This went live a few hours ago and looks like the same version as the previous beta, though the sound track came out at noon which is a nice touch. He made so many incredible changes leading up to release, it was perhaps unreasonable there would be more content coming, haha!

So I rolled up a brand new game and will dive in over the weekend. Very exciting!

Diving in after release. Veteran/Ironman.

I’ve only played an hour and haven’t noticed significant changes. As Scott said, the music is more varied and pretty good. And the map seems to have more points of interest. Maybe it is the luck of the draw, but previous maps had less villages/towns/keeps, etc.

Veteran level is tough.

Seven brothers, marching under the banner of the Weeping Queen, in search of seven brides barely survived their first one skull mission. They faced five nachzehrer in a graveyard.

One brother was clawed to death. Wolfram the Pessimist now has a gaping hole where his nose once was, a permanent injury that reduces his fatigue by 10%

And Kori the Bull took a blow to the head that “shook some things up and didn’t exactly benefit this character’s cognitive skills (a permanent -25% Experience Gain and -25% Initiative). On the bright side, he may now be just too stupid to realize when it’s time to run.” (+15% Resolve).

I picked the Bear banner because I love it’s look and orientation (most of them are more traditional, this is like a cool flag) but then ruined it by calling my band of brothers Unbearable.

I liked it. Just saying. ;)

Wooop, look like I missed the EA and now the game went up ten bucks.

Hm. I guess it’s cliche, but I’ll wait for the eventual sale.

That is probably a good idea. The game is fine but quite repetitive. I got up to about day 90 or so and found the battles became quite difficult and some were impossible but the game play never changed. It still consists of wandering from town to town to pick up a contract to go kill a group of bandits, orcs, goblins or undead. It is a fine but unmemorable gaming experience in my 20 hours or so.

On the real-time map: is there a way to know where the “hotspots” are and feedback that lets you know you’ve successfully clicked on one? In Xcom’s real-time map, you can always and only move to actual destinations. In Battle Brothers, you can move anywhere, and 99% of pixels on the map have nothing going on. Do I have to just frantically click all over the place to make sure I’ve explored an area thoroughly, while time is passing and my dudes rack up expenses?

This is a legitimate question, not criticism disguised as a question. I genuinely would like to know whether I should consider buying in the future when it’s on sale. (I already refunded due to real-time-map frustration.)

I guess I’m not really following where your confusion comes from. It’s a large map, you click to move around on it, and if you see something you want to interact with, such as a city, roaming group of enemies, or a special site (such as this Headchopper’s Grotto) you simply left click it and your men walk to it.

This was so confusing and frustrating you refunded the game? Maybe instead hit up YouTube, in this particular case (even right off the main menu) there are a few very detailed tutorial videos and a developer walk through of how to play.

You have a vision radius around your company that will reveal anything of interest that you discover within the vision range on the world map. It’s very noticeable when moving through the fog-of-war as you clear a path through it. The vision radius is bigger in the day and smaller at night.

When a you encounter something new like a new site on the map or an enemy, the game plays a very noticeable sound to indicate you’ve found something. So no, you don’t have to click all over the place but you will have to move around to explore new areas to see what might be there.

Is there any poking around, hunting for hidden caves or treasure or creatures or anything? Or are all locations clearly labeled with a big textual sign at all times?

Yes, and only after you spot them.

[quote=“justaguy2, post:409, topic:76758, full:true”]
On the real-time map: is there a way to know where the “hotspots” are and feedback that lets you know you’ve successfully clicked on one?[/quote]

I’m pretty sure the cursor changes based on whether you’ve told your guys to walk somewhere or enter a location. The former is a boot, the latter is a, uh, not a boot thing. A sword?

Not always a sign. Sometimes just a big fat icon. Bandit camps for instance.

-Tom

So what’s the smart way to spend on upgrading a team? I’m about 30-40 day in and I’ve noticed that so far saving up for weapons seems futile. Every time I start saving up for some juicy better weapon, I seem to “level up” my renown and start getting harder missions. And then the harder enemies start dropping a better class of equipment and I get to upgrade my equipment for free. Well, actually, I have to pay for the tools to repair them, but that’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

I also splurged once on a 2k militiaman to join my team, since I had an opening after a bad run in with orcs. He seems okay, but not any better than my daytalers or hunters. I think his cost was so high just because he came with some equipment.

This is a great game but the economy is confusing.

I get most of my gear from bandits/raiders and then spend only on the equipment they rarely have or drop. Stuff like warbows, heavy crossbows, two hand swords (very rarely a bandit leader will have one) and heavy armor.

Later in the game I may splurge on a sellsword or hedge knight, looking for good stats, but only if I have the extra crowns to burn. I wouldn’t spend 2K on militia bros.

And yes, the economy is weird.

Like Coldsteel, I get the majority of gear from bandits but have purchases a few higher-tier weapons like Winged Maces, 2-Handed swords and hammers, and warhammers. I’ve also spent a lot of money upgrading armor and helmets, gradually replacing the stuff we loot and handing down those to newer recruits.

The problem there is when none of those guys feels like dropping their cool stuff, which has happened to me a couple times. You get pretty quickly behind the curve and doomed in that scenario.

I made it to day 60-ish in my game and started feeling cocky. Most of my guys had a weapon mastery skill, my front line had all chain mail and kite/heater shields, I had decent weapons. I was cutting through brigand thugs and feeling tough. Then I decided to wander over to those ancient keep in the snowy wastes that some traveler had sold me a map for. This was . . . a mistake.

I was fighting nine skeletons of what had to be top tier. They were called statues or similar? All I know is they were armored to the teeth and most of them carried two handed or reach weapons. I managed to kill all of two of them before they cut down my whole force.

Soooo, back to the saved game for me! I understand the point of weapons with 200% armor damage now for sure.

Ancient Legionary? Never heard of statue skeletons but the legionary have heavy armor, shields, and long pikes and they try to stay in formation! Maybe these fellows you encountered were even higher tier than the legionary? Ouch

I’ve run into legionnaires before and this was definitely a higher tier than them. So completely armored that no skeletal bits were showing. I wasn’t even sure it was a skeleton until I bashed the helmet off one and discovered the skeleton head underneath.

EDIT: It was 9-10 of these bastards: https://truesteamachievements.com/a230066/walking-statue-achievement