Battle Brothers Hits Early Access

Yes it needs the DLC’s.

Blog #131 last week, the City States Part 2, features a look at some of the troops fielded by city states, from Slaves to Assassins!

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Today’s blog, #132, gives us a peek at a new type of weapon, Firearms!

Battle Brothers is set in an era spanning the early to high medieval ages as we move from Scramasax to Greatsword and across all the tiers of equipment. There’s a few outliers, such as the Fencing Sword, but by and large this dictates what kind of equipment may make its way into the game. It’s also the reason why there isn’t any full-blown plate armor available. Naturally, the same restrictions apply to any gunpowder weapons we’re going to introduce.

Until the ‘Blazing Deserts’ DLC, the setting was limited to draw inspiration from Europe. Gunpowder weapons weren’t much of a thing there at the time, but it doesn’t mean that other cultures weren’t employing them. The gunpowder weapons we’re going to introduce aren’t the muskets that many people may immediately think of, because these clearly would fall out of the era that Battle Brothers covers. Instead, they are very early firearms based on what eastern cultures actually had available at the time.

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Blazing Deserts

Release Date Announcement - August 13th, $15

The largest and most ambitious DLC for Battle Brothers

  • New Lands – Visit new lands to the south with independent city-states that have their own lore, equipment and services, as well as entirely new character backgrounds to recruit.
  • Retinue – Hire non-combat followers for your retinue to customize your campaign experience to fit your playstyle. Hire a drill sergeant to train your men. Never lose shields again with a blacksmith that can repair gear no matter how damaged. Buy carts for additional inventory space.
  • Arena – Fight in front of cheering spectators to earn coin, experience and unique rewards as an alternative to mercenary work.
  • New Crisis – Survive a new late game crisis that tests the mettle of your company in the fires of religious turmoil.
  • New Opponents – Face new factions of city state soldiers and desert raiders, complete with their own gear and unique mechanics. Hunt down and get hunted by desert beasts.
  • New Origins – Play using one of three new southern-themed origins, each with special rules that shape your campaign into a different experience from beginning to end.
  • New Banners and Gear – Dress in style with a collection of new banners, shields, helmets and armors inspired by Arabic and Persian culture. Use new weapons, alchemical contraptions and primitive firearms.
  • Legendary Location – Visit a new legendary location and fight a new boss in a quest that leads to a legendary reward.
  • New Location Environments – Fight amidst southern ruins and nomad tents on the tactical combat map, in addition to graveyards and encampments by brigands, orcs and goblins that come with a free update to the base game.
  • New Contracts and Events – Earn your stay in the south by taking on new contracts. Immerse yourself in leading a mercenary company with even more illustrated events.
  • New Music – Several new music tracks set the mood on your adventures.
  • New Achievements – Challenge yourself with new achievements.

OMG that sounds awesome!!!

Have you been following the dev diaries?

They’re awesome.

I hadn’t been because the game’s release date was so far off. Made it harder to wait :)

I haven’t been following this, but it sounds great. Thanks for posting this.

This is one of those games where I love the concept. Love the gameplay. But don’t play it because I’m just terrible at it.

I’m kind of hoping this new DLC will open things up for terrible players like you and I. BTW I have hundreds of hours and I still need to play on Easy.

I save scum heavily. Otherwise I would never get anywhere in the game. I tried Ironman mode, it’s fun, but I never lasted long.

I also fail miserably but I really quite like it!

Part 1 of the developer’s preview of the upcoming Blazing Deserts DLC is up on their YT channel. It looks so good! Some highlights:

  • New themed items, armor, and weapons.
  • New southern city-states faction, at war with Northern states over POIs
  • New Alchemy shop, sells potions, firearms, bombs, gunpowder, etc
  • New Arena in city-states where you fight for fame and money
  • New Gladiator origin start… just look at that golden glorious armor!

I’m so excited for this - I played and beat (on easy/non-ironman mode) the game around launch and then played briefly (and unsuccessfully) after the first DLC and then haven’t been in since. I picked up the missing DLC over the Holiday Sale and that was right around when they announced this so I held off on my replay, so when this finally drops I have a LOT of awesome new content I’ve never seen before (or that I barely encountered last time). Super pumped. I will check this video out right now, thanks for the link!

I have never beaten the game. ;(

I tend to start weak, get strong in the middle and have 12 brothers very well equipped, and then get hammered, usually by Orcs or Goblins, and once I lose a single long serving and levelled up brother, it seems to me I am in a mega hole!

I save-scum. I have played Ironman, and it is fun in it’s own unique way, but when I beat it, I did a lot of reloading.

This is me, I basically treated it like a party-based RPG and I really enjoyed it on that level.

I finally won my first game, but I always play Ironman. I’ve lost scores of tiimes, and that made my first win all that much sweeter. I played very cautiously, and ran from several battles. Losing a veteran is really tough, but the game should be providing you with some good replacements by that point. In fact, it was when I could finally afford recruiting stronger mercs that I really saw my power increase. Farmhands and ratcatchers are no match for orc beserkers even when levelled up and kitted out.

That is something I wish the game made more obvious. I didn’t realize this until I saw a chart of each profession and their min/max stats. You need to ditch your early recruits for better classes late game.

Another thing I never did is highly specialize my guys. I watched a YouTuber and he had very specific roles for everyone. Made a huge difference.

Ditto. I do allow some characters to stay dead if it’s just too glorious a story to bury but for the most part, I reload when the losses are great and the recovery would lead to more grind. I feel justified in that I don’t min-max or use exploitative tactics to optimize every outcome. (not that there’s anything wrong with that) I’m also just not good enough to win without save-scumming so there’s that…