Can you guys stop derailing the saga of Jost Goodhand with your silly discussions about strategy? I mean really!
I really want to like this game, but I can’t get past the early game.
My dudes just die. They can’t hit anything and get mauled. But not before being too exhausted to do anything.
I’ve tried all the usual “give them spears and shields” and whatnot, but it never seems to matter.
Fair enough, since he didn’t use “reply” to what was discussed in April (which I am sure I read last April) it seemed out of the blue and a strange comparison.
I had a poor first impression for the same reasons you did. I then swallowed my pride and notched down the difficulty and had a much more enjoyable time. It wasn’t too easy either for me, it should be a good way to at least learn the game and git gud.
What level do you have the difficulty set to? When first learning the game make sure it’s set to the easiest level. Make sure you buy some decent shields right way. Not the tiny ones, they are crap. When starting a battle early game, don’t move your men first and don’t shoot with your archer first (work towards eventually getting 2 of those with decent ranged stats). Instead, use the ‘wait’ command and let the enemy come to you. Then when you’re up again, first shoot with your archer while the enemy is still in the open and attack with your melee troops afterward. Since this happens after the enemy moved (hopefully within range), you can attack with your men and then many of them with decent initiative will get to go first again on the next turn. It’s like getting two attacks for the price of one.
Hopefully by now at least a few of the enemy are dead and their morale is faltering. If you can move your archer(s) to take an unobstructed shot, do it on his turn, otherwise swap out your bow and equip a pitchfork (if you have one), then position him behind your men. The pitchfork can attack from two tiles away so he can still attack while being protected by the men in front of him. It helps.
Keep a line of connected men with shields and spears in front and put shield wall up when needed. Don’t overuse it and don’t use it constantly with attacks or your men will get fatigued. You’ll have to use judgment there. it’s better to just use shield wall if their fatigue is getting up there unless you think one more hit will kill the enemy. Make sure you have one of your men with a 2 hand axe to smash shields. One more with a hatchet is good as well. Use as needed. Use good initiative troops to chase archers if need be.
It’s a very tactical game so you just need to practice the tactics some. Make sure you know the strengths/weaknesses of the various weapons and try to fit them to the stats of your men. I really recommend watching the Overhype dev’s Let’s Plays on YouTube. They’re very helpful. I’d recommend starting here:
You neglected to quote anyone when citing DOOM’s strategic layer.
I’m going to pretend this is a serious request so that I can shoehorn some history in here about the Goodhand boy who ran away from the circus to join a mercenary band.
Goodhand now is famous for swinging his halberd about, but when he first came into the troop he was one of those X-com-style hires that you hand the crappy equipment and tell him to go check corners so everyone else is ok. At first I didn’t have any sort of head protection for him, or a proper shield so he got one of those bucklers Coldsteel accurately dismisses and a pickaxe, like he was a refugee from Dwarf Fortress.
Behind him in the support line was a character called “Randal The Drunk.” Randal had been hired because he was apparently handy with a bow. And he owned a bow.
Unfortunately, despite having one of the better ranged attack ratings in the group it turns out that alcohol and projectile weapons don’t really mix and Randal accidentally shot two of his colleagues in the back in his first battle.
We put that down to a mix of nerves and enthusiasm, (and booze), and told him not to do it again, but in his second battle he shot Heinrich in the back. “The Heinrich Manoeuvre” is one of our original companions so shooting him is just not on and we had to confiscate Randal’s crossbow and hand him the billhook we’d just acquired instead.
Fortunately, drunkenly swinging eight feet of tree with a sharp hook on the end is super effective and Randal turned into one of our most accomplished killers. He even saved Jost once - Goodhand had been seriously wounded in the stomach and his assailant was sure to land a killing blow, but instead Randal gave him the hook, pulling him out of range of Goodhand and subsequently beheading the enemy.
Two battles later Randal The Drunk’s luck ran out when he suffered a freak shaving accident at the hands of an Orc Warrior with a blade thicker than your thigh. We won the battle and recovered Randal’s halberd and it only made sense to give it to Jost.
After his run of injuries Jost is now completely healthy again and these days we like him enough to give him an actual helmet. He adds fearful offence to the left side of our uneven line with the billhook and I wish the game tracked how many career kills every has, because he’d definitely be toward the top for us.
I believe they will start tracking kills in the next update?
Thanks for letting us know how Jost is doing.
When you reply to the person’s post above you, it doesn’t show that it is a reply (which is really confusing sometimes). It was obvious I was reply to you, so I didn’t use a quote. Look, I wasn’t knocking you, was just teasing, your comparison seemed really strange, and you were replying to something from months ago, so it wasn’t apparent.
The game is tough and requires a bit of grinding out less lucrative low risk contracts until you have an experienced enough crew outfitted with sufficient gear to take on bigger challenges.
Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way which I hope are helpful to you:
In the early game seek out bandits as they are some of the easiest foes and they drop gear and loot. If you have to engage Goblins, fight them at night. Goblin ambushers with their poisoned bows are accurate and deadly by day. But at night they are much less accurate. Goblins are relatively lightly armored foes so close fast and overwhelm them. Avoid Orcs until your troops are experienced, heavily armored and have war hammers and other weapons that can deal with the Orc Warriors’ heavy armor.
Choose crossbows over bows. They don’t have the range of a bow but they can punch through armor that arrows cannot.
Arm your ranged troops with pitchforks/pikes/billhooks. They can whittle down the opponents until they engage your frontline troops, then they can attack from behind the lines. Consider pushing away foes that might deal a deathblow to a wounded front line warrior so that the wounded warrior can safely retreat on their turn.
Arm your frontline troops with throwing weapons. They aren’t accurate but you can usually scores some hits while waiting for the enemy to engage in melee.
Claim the high ground. Engaging an enemy that occupies the higher ground is dangerous especially in the early game. Use your troops ability to push enemies off of the high ground if you must engage a foe with a height advantage.
If you want war dogs, get the armored ones. Then use them when units are retreating as they can run them down faster than your troops. Beware of releasing them too near enemies that have not retreated as I think the dogs go for the nearest enemy. Dogs can also attack ranged units which will then stop shooting at your guys and melee with the dog, but you are likely to lose the dog.
As you advance and gain money start swapping out your recruits with Sellswords and hedge knights. Don’t get too attached to your early recruits, even if you’ve leveled them up a lot. A level 11 Sellsword is going to be so much better than a level 11 farmhand.
One exception I make is if an early recruit has high resolve/courage. I focus on making that one Captain and invest in the perks that allow him to rally your troops. Nobles tend to make the best Captains.
A couple other guys to look out for: The Tailor.can stitch together dire wolf pelts to make some kick ass armor. The Bowyer can make a very good bow. Apprentices can be taught by mercs and advance.
Sometimes if you are being pursued by a faction that is too strong for you but you can’t out run them, you can lure them towards a faction that is enemies with your pursuers and initiate a three way fight. Stand back and let the two factions have at one another then swoop in for the kill. If Goblins are chasing you, look for a Bandit camp or Orc cave, etc. Risky, but fun and it gives you a fighting chance.
New LP from the developer showing off some of the newest stuffs from the final update before release:
Episode 2 just went up as well:
Can’t wait! Do they have a final release date yet?
Only word I’ve read is this month. It’s got to be very close, though.
EDIT: Looks like this month is for the beta release with release to follow after that, depending on issues found in the beta release.
This morning’s dev blog says they will be releasing the final update into the Steam beta branch next week. Then at some point after that they will be raising the EA price to the release price, which will be $29.99 So, if anyone is planning on getting this you might want to take advantage of the EA price before they raise it.
Also, some more let’s plays for the final update are out:
$29.99 seems a bit steep for Steam. I mean, i enjoy the game and think it’s worth every penny but I’m not sure the general Steam masses will agree. I suppose if you’re targeting war-game and TBS-tactical grognards the price may be acceptable but these days on Steam, you can get a lot more game for the same, or even less, amount of dough.
I hope the studio does well and they’re able to continue to flesh BB out more with DLCs. It still feels a bit “bare bones” to me. I’d like to see more enemy types, magic, monsters, more life on the map, explorable POI’s, women mercs, etc … just more content.
Here’s what they said regarding the price:
We’ve decided on 27.99€ / 29.99$ - seems to be an established price point for premium indie titles, like Age of Decadence or Rimworld.
Also, They’d love to continue to flesh the game out in the areas you described. Here’s what they said yesterday about future content:
It’s actually looking good for us to try our luck with a DLC after release. If we do it, then it’d be a combination of a free update and a sizable paid expansion with a clear thematic focus on improving some of the weaker points of the game with additional mechanics and content. We’d love to unlock this game’s full potential if given the chance.
Well that’s great news! I’ll do my part to help promote with a video or two on my YT channel but I already know it won’t perform well with the majority of my viewers (re: kids) so I won’t do many, but the exposure certainly can’t hurt.
Well those Let’s Plays certainly helped, but a lot of what helped was stuff that’s coming in the patch, so…
Wish it would release already, kind of want to dig into it again.
The final update is out on the Steam beta branch. Woohoo!