Another patch is out this morning with some fixes and balancing:
I had my first run against Necrosavants, only 2 of them (backed by skellies auxiliaries which arent that big trouble on their own) managed to wipe out my entire squad :(
I’m definitely falling behind some kind of invisible power curve. The enemies I’m facing are always wearing heavy mail armor and helms and bearing powerful heater shields and weapons like military picks and arming swords. I can’t get through a fight without losing 2-4 brothers, and then I’m forced to fill my ranks with level 1 fishermen so I can afford to pay wages, and the battles just get harder and harder. Kind of a bummer. Great game though, I’m really loving it! It’s a rare game that gets harder and harder as you play, rather than overcoming an early game difficulty “hump”, that’s for sure.
Yeah, those are the new Ancient Vampires. One of the toughest enemies in the game. They will suck your blood to heal and make a beeline to what they perceive are your weakest brothers. Usually your ranged guys.
I ran into a pack of 5 of them outside an undead citadel yesterday and barely managed to kill them without losing anyone though I got beat up plenty. A few things to note: 1) Weapons with a reach of 2 hexes have a huge to-hit penalty against them. Basically useless. 2) You need to immobilize them so they can’t teleport away. So use maces and the knockout skill or nets to immobilize them and lower defenses. They don’t have much armor so you can kill them pretty easy if you can keep them from running or sucking your blood to heal. Still, they are really tough. I did get 3 sweet khopeshs off of them though.
Yeah, it sounds like you’ve fallen a bit behind the curve. What day is it? What’s the level of your best brothers? To fight guys with mail and those kinds of arms you’ll probably need to be around level 3 or 4 with at least some decent equipment. How many ranged do you have? If you have 2 or 3 and give them crossbows, they can level the field on armored enemies. Also, equip weapons that penetrate armor.
If you can kill them, then you get some of the nice stuff they drop. What I do is early on fight as many bandits and raider types as I can to loot the gear that they drop. Losing a lot of guys can really hurt though. If you have at least 2 or 3 higher level brothers left, you should be able to recover by running escort contracts or trading to get enough cash to buy equipment. If all you have is level 1 guys and no decent equipment though, you may think about retiring your company and starting a new one.
The kingdoms just started warring each other and the faction missions they’re giving me are super hard! Most of my guys are above level 7, but their armor is not so great. I just don’t think it’s fun to be able to only run a few yards or hit twice before becoming fatigued and useless. Maybe I should hire mercs with better starting stats, but then I have to grind to get them up to level. I would like to participate in the faction conflict but am too weak.
I’m hoping the guys you start with (e.g. fisherman, daytalers, brawlers, tailors, etc) and develop over time can be just as good as the super expensive hires. I’ve got a history with these men, I’d hate for them to become obsolete someday…
I was told the expensive hires have higher starting stats, so they will end up stronger in the long run.
Had an interesting session tonight! AAR…
I lost my first man and I replaced him with a Caravan-Hand that cost 950 crowns, which is approx. 4x more than I’ve ever paid for anyone but he had decent gear and experience so I bit the bullet!
Not a mile out of the town I just hired him at and suddenly he approaches, nervous and pale, and tells a tale about how he’d been cursed by a witch and now can’t have sex. I ask what does the witch want, he says 400 crowns. I say GTFO and he gets all disgruntled, scared and panicked (permanent stat debuffs!) and becomes worthless. I fire him on the spot, give him 20 crown severance pay, and go back to town and hire a Houndmaster.and an armored War Dog.
He too becomes scared and superstitious about something and his resolve is cut in half! So I stick him in the reserve line with scratchy sackcloth tunic and give his dog to someone else.
Later, I take a job to deal with grave robbers. I find them, and they offer me a map if I let them go. I do, and the map leads to an old fortress in the woods. We go there and find a small horde of zombies. We defeat them (spearwall!) and find this treasure hoard (the last 4 items):
We head back to town to collect our reward for dealing with the grave robbers but the client says he saw the robbers on the road and the entire town is pissed (town name changes to RED). We leave, expeditiously.
We take a caravan escort job and are waylaid by a group of undead led by a Necromancer (my first!) The battle rages for a long time, with the caravan guards sitting back watching us do all the fighting! We kill the zombies, they rise again but we’re slowly working our way to the back where the Necromancer performs his dark magic. But we’re also getting tired and injured and finally the caravan guards decide to jump in and help!
At long last, a few of my men reach the necomancer, weary and bloody, and my swordsman lops off his head. We rejoice and continue on the road to make our delivery and collect our pay!
I buy the men a round of drinks and there is more rejoicing! well, except for the superstitious, hound-less Houndmaster in his itchy sackcloth.
Wow that is pretty wild!
Yeah, this game really lends itself well to stories/AARs. I had a contract from a Baron to raid the outskirts of a town under his control and make it look like bandits did it so the town would come to him for protection. Well, I did the dirty deed and attacked those peasants so I could get to allied reputation status with his house. The battle was in a swamp and when the message popped up (after one-shotting a few peasants) that they were running away and the battle was over, I let them run rather than hunting them all down in the swamp. When I returned to the Baron, he was livid because the peasants that escaped ran to the town and reported that the Baron had hired mercs to attack them and make it look like bandits did it. Contract FAIL. In retrospect, I had to laugh. I had just assumed that the game would not account for letting any peasants escape, but it did. Good job.
Also, a new patch out today. More balance fixes and changes along with bug fixes. The big change is that there now is no time limit on Ambitions. You can choose to abandon an Ambition instead of completing it and if you do, you get hit with the morale penalty then. I like that a lot better.
Patch notes here:
Can you repair a “hostile” reputation with a town/faction? I killed a rival mercenary group when they were hired by a town, and the town got mad!
It seems a town that was furious with me is now only Unfriendly. The town had a RED name and now it’s white. So my guess is that bad relations are forgiven over time… not sure though but I’ll keep an eye on this town and see what happens.
Also, remember a balanced diet is key to a man’s heart. Wait, or is the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach? I guess it’s all the same:
You guys are making it so hard to resist this… It looks like it is something that I’ll love. And the way you people describe it… it’s like you’ve having loads of fun!
I’m playing it every chance I get and that’s pretty rare for me. I usually just stare at my desktop trying to choose a game to play at night and eventually just walk away and watch TV. So yeah, I’m definitely enjoying BBros
@Yack_Attack Relations do creep toward neutral over time, so I guess it’s a double-edged sword…
Wow I thought I was the only person who did that!
What is the benefit of having an alliance with a town? Do you get special missions?
So I feel a little stuck in this game.
I’ve played 22 hours all up, all on ironman difficulty, and my present company is the one I have gotten the furthest in. I have a few level 7 guys and the rest lower level. I have 3 bowman/crossbowman which convert to 2-range people when the enemy gets close enough, two guys who exclusively hold two-handed weapons, and then a frontline of 7 guys who all have nice shields and a variety of one-handed weapons.
I can beat most enemies I come across easily, unless I hit a nasty goblin/orc team which will usually kill 1-2 guys every engagement. My problem is that these guys don’t level up fast enough. If I lose 1-2 guys every interesting fight, then I lose guys faster than I can level up new ones. I have 18k at the moment so can’t just buy new level 3-5 guys as they are all absurdly expensive. So I feel I have to grind alot of baddies to get to do a few interesting tough fights, and then grind alot more, then a few more interesting fights, etc. etc…
Grinding isn’t fun, I like exploring new territory and engaging tough enemies. I also don’t want to turn off ironman and start save scumming either. It seems to me an interesting solution to the balance problems that I am having is to make levelling faster, especially levels 5+, it drops off so much after getting level 5.
A mod sounds like it would be perfect. Just tweak those level requirements.
Do I need to buy the Deluxe version to be able to play right now?
No, the standard edition comes with Early Access. The Deluxe also includes the soundtrack.