Battle Brothers Hits Early Access

All my attempts at this game go about the same. Having fun, leveling up, getting new equipment, etc. Then somewhere around day 20, 1 skull missions are too easy, I can do two skull missions, but any missions is hard to come by. Towns just don’t have missions, or they’re locked missions. Money starts to get low, and I get bored/frustrated wandering the map.

What am I doing wrong?

  1. As I do the 1 star missions, I try to range out farther from your starting towns. Visiting every town and doing their 1 star missions if possible.

By day 20, I would be on at least open relations with every town.

  1. If there are roaming bandits, I would typically ambush them. They spawn near strongholds relatively frequently. They are basically free loot (esp at Vet and above Combat difficulty) when your brothers are equipped properly with some levels under their belt.

  2. I’ll do cargo delivery as well as caravan escorts missions. They typically take you further afield and you get a relations bonus when you arrive at the destination, allowing you to have jobs. (Do not be afraid to abandon the caravan if you get ambushed by enemies that are too strong.)

  3. Maybe the map seed really sucks. In that case, you can retry with another map seed. Check out the map seed thread in the Steam forum.

I used to encounter this problem when I started out playing. But I never seem to encounter it again after roaming around picking up jobs all over the map. I think it’s important to get most towns on good relations before hitting mid-game.

Thank you for the tips. Maybe I should venture out further? I usually stay in one portion of the map trying to build up my reputation. But nothing seems to have missions,so I am just wandering from one town in the network to the next. Maybe I should go to a completely new area?

Yes for sure. Also note if there aren’t missions it will take days for new ones to appear.

I’m putting this here for anyone that wants to use it (unless you think its cheating). The RNG Gods finally had pity on me and I got a pretty solid map seed. All the letters are CAPITALIZED.

AIWTUNCZIR

  • Shield Bro: Has the traits Strong (+10 fatigue) AND Iron Lung (+5 fatigue regen)
  • Axe Bro: Bright (+15% XP) AND Quick (+10 Initiative)
  • Bow Bro: Athletic (Less used when moving)

There are also a lot of good recruits, like Wildmen, Squires, and Hunters to be found in the various cities. Also, there is a medium sized village with a gem mine down the road from a large city so you can make some serious money trading.

Excellent - thanks!

I just picked this up after staring at it for the last few weeks. Grabbed the DLC as well. I may end up streaming if anyone is interested.

So for those veterans who are better and smarter than me at this game. Have you come up with any fun/cool builds that aren’t battle-forged or nimble based for your non-ranged troops?

I just can’t find something that is as effective outside of those 2 and I want to discover and implement some variety in my tactics.

Have you tried having a few polearm + crossbow hybrids. Give them quick hands so the can switch as needed. They really shine if you also choose the bags and belt perk and give them a few nets.

They make really versatile brothers and are a good career option for those hires that have good stats but don’t make sense as purely frontliners or ranged.

Cool. How do you fill out the other perks?

Check out Fritz’ treatise.

He calls that hybrid a Lance.

Good question, but I couldn’t really say. It’s been a while since I last played and, since I don’t have the expansion yet, I don’t know how the perks have been reworked.

The beauty of it is that it is a pretty flexible build, so you should take the makeup of your whole company and the brother’s stats into account. You can turn a mobile one into a flanker, a resolute one into a secondary sergeant or one with good fatigue into a heavily armoured brother that can plug holes in your frontline.

How do you defend against hexe? She is charming on every turn and it causes havoc. Read to go in unarmed, but I don’t see how that would work with 3 heavily armed defenders. Dogs don’t do enough damage to get her quickly enough. I have tried rushing her. I also don’t have good enough archers to take her down quick enough. Every time she charms my guys and they are just too deadly at melee and end up killing someone. Any tips?

Hi resolve helps. this run through all my guys are over 50 and most over 55.

I am so obsessed with this game. My RDR2 playthrough is stalled and I’ve played nothing else for over a week. I’ve never made it past the first couple of weeks though - I keep over extending and starting over to try out different early game strategies.

Hi Resolve definitely helps (most of my front liners have like 70-80 when buffed by bannerman) keep from getting charmed, but the worst or most troublesome part is dealing with the hex (where she places a curse on a brother who then receives the same damage she does.) I too have gone at her with dogs but when my high resolve melee masters were no longer getting charmed now one of them would die from the hex!

My strategy, and so far I have been lucky enough to only fight groups of 1 Hexe and her minions, is to let my high resolve or poor melee guys start with their main weapons out. The rest I give clubs (main is in their bag, just in case she’s got Unholds or something). Why clubs? Because they can stun! So now I keep the dogs tied up, charge in, kill her minions, and then stun her (hex’d brother still takes some minor damage) let the hex wear off then kill the Hexe. The last couple groups have been easy peasy but I’m worried what will happen when I start getting more than 1 Hexe.

My guys are all level 2-5, so resolve ranges from mid 30s to 60s. How to you ensure everyone has such high resolve? Kick out low resolve guys? Skills? I have been raising it with every level gained, but I am finding it difficult to get it as high as I need it to be. I am getting more hexe fights now as well, so have been avoiding them. Also need it high for the alps fights of course too.

Alps got nerfed a bit in todays patch, but I don’t find them too difficult. I just have everyone go in naked, and then stay spaced out and they aren’t a problem. Hexes are still impossible for me.

I plan on grabbing this ONE game (god help me) on the stream winter sale. Looks like it is deep and wide. Plus I like the beheadings in the videos.

I don’t know if it’s deep. You walk around, visit towns, and take contracts for (mostly) fights. The fights and building up your group is a ton of fun though. There is a real sense of improvement to it as you level up and get better gear. It’s a ton of fun, just not deep (or wide).

I finally beat a hexe. She had a bunch of spiders with her which were easy to defeat and she only managed to charm one guy who managed to miss on most of his attacks.

The skull ratings are completely out of wack in my opinion. I will get a one skull mission against 4 upholds or 2 hexes that I can’t win without significant losses, and then I will get a 3 skull mission to escort a caravan (which almost never require battles, just time) or to fight some brigands with one good archer that I do with ease.