Excited to check this out.
Poking around, finished the tutorial mission (which isn’t much of a tutorial, but everything seems pretty easy to figure out so far). No obvious bugs and combat is fun so far. I can’t find contracts because I don’t have enough reputation with the nobles so far so spending a lot of time traveling, which is a bit frustrating.
Kind of gives me the old Wizard’s Crown feel so far. Line up two groups and go at it. Pretty straight forward.
I’m finding this build a bit easier than the other builds I’ve played but that could be because I’m actually paying attention to things like character stats and the roles of different weapon types. I’ve only played about two hours with this new build but I really like what I’m seeing!
I started a new campaign last night using the final update beta. At first everything went pretty smoothly. I chose the company goal of expanding my company to 12 men and by doing local contracts, was able to add some cheap brothers and get there after 8 days or so. That gave my company a big boost in renown and I started getting higher paying contracts which was important because I was pretty wiped out financially after hiring the last few men.
I was getting low on food and cash so I took a lucrative delivery contract that took me to the far north, close to the snow line. I checked the tavern there and they had an interesting rumor about a dead man with a wondrous weapon somewhere to the north. Of course I couldn’t resist the lure and headed right north into the snow to explore. Sure enough, in a snow shrouded copse of trees I found an ancient citadel, which happened to be just full of undead. I was used to the undead in the previous version so I plowed right ahead. I wanted that legendary weapon and what could go wrong, right?
Well, I got the weapon but it came at a very heavy cost:
I lost 6 of my hard earned 12 men in this action. These are not your father’s undead. These undead are the heavily armed and armored remnants of an empire. Basically, they’re undead Romans and most of the ones I encountered are the heavy armor/weapon Ancient Auxiliaries. These are new to the game.
In addition to the Ancient Auxiliaries there was also a Necrosavant (also new). The Necrosavant has light armor but has the ability to teleport so he would pop up behind my line and attack my archers then teleport elsewhere as soon as I brought some brothers over to surround him. His cleaver type weapon caused bleeding and I lost one brother when he bled out (no bandages, unfortunately).
The battle actually went very well at first. I set up a nice spear wall with 7 of my brothers and they repelled attack after attack without taking a scratch and sending many undead to their final rest. Finally though, one of them missed an attack and then they were able to close and do battle with my men. A lot of the Auxiliaries had shields and I only had 2 brothers with axes. Which would be fine except I was fighting in snow, which really slows movement and also increases fatigue. It was a deadly combination.
My recent level 1 hires died first. Surrounded by undead protected by shields they had little chance. After the deaths of the first few brothers, morale on the others started to waver. Suddenly a few men bolted. The Necrosavant immediately teleported over to one of them and chopped him down as he tried to run away. It was an ugly sound. The other runner, who was my 2-hand axe brother, a founding member of the company (so he should have known better), and my best melee guy, rediscovered his courage and rejoined that battle. That was the turning point as he smashed shield after shield. One bother with a cleaver beheaded two undead straight up, even though they still had shields. the rest finally succumbed to my spearmen and it was finally over.
So, very heavy losses netted me a bunch of gold treasures to sell in town and, of course, the legendary weapon. This was the reward for the death of 6 brothers. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t worth so much blood and death.
I wasn’t aware there were places on the map you could go into without a mission (besides towns), @Coldsteel. Is there a lot of these kind of places? Every time I have clicked on a building, etc, nothing happens.
I am having a hard time finding contracts, in the area I am in I have done all those ones available, but a lot of towns still have locked missions.I spend a lot of time walking around. Otherwise, my game was going ok and then I had a sudden ramp of difficulty.
Everything was going well enough, had 12 guys and was doing most missions with ease. Then I got a mission to get some bandits. Two skull mission, which haven’t been a problem up to this point. This one had a bandit leader though. I went in during the day so I could use my bowmen, although they kind of suck, and found a row of enemy bowmen to be on what looked like a top of a cliff. I was also on top of a hill so we would have a valley to cross to get to them. Their bowmen had huge range, hitting on every shot for tons of damage, while my bowmen couldn’t reach them.
I tried to pull back, hoping they would chase me, but they wouldn’t. I tried to charge in…which proved devastating, so I had to retreat. Not sure what to do now. Try at night? Forget this mission?
I enjoy TBS strategy games and RPG’s, but I must admit after watching the 30 minute developer video on Steam (next to the trailer by screenshots), I’m having a hard time deciding if it looks like it might get a bit boring/dry at some points.
Is it pretty addicting in a one-more-turn kinda way?
Yeah, there are. Some of them you find out about by checking Taverns for rumors but there are many others hidden in the unexplored fog areas on your map. Some of them can be super tough. Some of them hide legendary items.
Yeah, I think this is a balance issue currently with the first beta version of the release. I noticed the same thing and reported on the forum.
The missions that have a leader are tougher but the leader usually drops some sweet equipment. The last time I had one the leader dropped a nice 2-hand sword. Those missions are certainly tough but doable. However, your main problem is that last sentence. Every battle map is procedurally generated and it sounds like you attacked them in hilly territory and the RNG dealt you a very tough map with the bandits on extreme high ground. Retreating was the right thing to do. When you fight them again, it will be different terrain and it may put you on the high ground instead. You can mitigate that by chasing them around some until they’re on territory you want to attack them on at a time of day that’s favorable. If they’re in a fortification then just hope the RNG is kinder next time. The other thing you can do is fight them at night as you mentioned. That would be smart if they have more/better archers than you do. They should come to you then.
It’s very addicting. It’s basically original X-Com with a medieval setting. There’s a strategic (mostly) real-time game on the big map and turn based missions which are really a lot of the fun in the game. Now that they’ve added a lot of stuff to the strategic portion of the game, including the company goals and end-game crises, it should not get boring. That was the intent of this last big update. I have over 100 hours in it and it doesn’t bore me but you have to like these kinds of games, I think.
Thanks @Coldsteel. One more question, are those areas that you can find stuff, are they marked somehow when you discover them? Or just click on the building, etc? Is there something to differentiate them from everything else?
@jpinard if I wasn’t deep into Pillars of Eternity right now, I would be playing this. I did play for 3 hours or so yesterday and was really enjoying it. So far it has that one more mission feeling because you know your guys suck, but you can feel yourself gradually growing in power. As Coldsteel said, it has that XCom feel to it, although the battles seem to be a bit more cut and dry. Usually it’s just you lined up against and enemy, you are not searching a map and clearing buildings or anything. You definitely have to to manage the battles though, it is really easy to get ahead of yourself leading to a fight going south. Plus you start to get your favorite characters and want them to level up.
Any ruin or site you find in the wild can be moved into by clicking onto them just like you would a town. There should be a tooltip when you put your mouse on them telling you the name of the site and (sometimes) what type of enemy is inside.
Generally, they will look something like these:
[quote=“Coldsteel, post:107, topic:76758, full:true”]It’s basically original X-Com with a medieval setting.
[/quote]
DAMM YOU, now i have to try it.
Just started up a new game with the beta and enjoying it quite a bit. Got a rag-tag mercenary band of 8 so far, most equipped with milita spears and shields, 1 xbow, 1 shortbow, 1 woodsman axe, 1 falchion, and 1 pitchforker. We’ve got mostly rugged tunics and padded armor but everybody has a helmet (very important!)
We’ve done a few bandit missions and one undead cemetery clearing and all my mercs are now level 2. Haven’t lost anyone yet and everyone is in good spirits.
Some thoughts/tips:
- helmets are essential
- axe is amazing at 1-hit beheadings!
- spear-wall is freaking awesome, watching enemies run into it, take damage, and fall back. doesn’t work well against smarter enemies but works wonders vs undead
- javelins are worth the 200+ crowns. good “to-hit” and damage and you DO retrieve them after the battle
- definitely play hardball negotiating contracts… i.e. always ask for more money at least once
I picked this up last night after watching the videos (linked above, by the dev) and because of @ShivaX’s strong recommendation. I’m glad I did - this is delightful. I love the art style, I mean, I freaking love the art style. The little icon/attack animations and sound effects are perfect, and it really captures the danger of combat (I had a new hire just get beheaded in a fight - these things happen). So good so far.
I can’t even imagine what anything resembling mid-game let alone end-game looks like. But I really want to get to the point where I have men wearing plate armor and wielding castle-forged weapons. Holy fuck, what kind of enemies would I be facing then?!
Possibly these bad boys:
Or these:
Or possibly these:
I forgot to mention that one of the more interesting changes in this final update is not listed in the patch notes. You can now attack any party on the map by using Ctrl + Left Click.
Running low on cash? Yeah, you can attack that juicy friendly caravan from that city you just finished a contract for. Or yeah, you can attack that rival band of mercs for that nice equipment. Just be aware that there may be consequences. You won’t be able to enter that city to buy or sell stuff anymore, much less get more contracts from there. Patrols in the area will chase you down. That merc band you attacked may have allies. Still for those that don’t mind playing as a slightly more evil band of mercs, it certainly does seem to open up a world of possibilities.
Picked this up before it hits $30, really like the combat so far. The overland map however is far too large and slow to move about, even on 2x speed. The scale just feels wrong, and most of the time, at least at the start, it’s pretty boring.
Been staring at my computer monitor for 5 hours today - doing nothing but posting a few times. Absolutely drained from fighting a lung infection all week. Even lower O2 equals dumber brain that processes slower ie. can’t play stuff would like want such as Ashes or Warhammer. Long story short went and bought this with the hope it kinda whisks me away. Would it be tolerable to ask some stupid questions?
What is the negative of moving into someone’s zone of control? Does it lower your accuracy or defense? Using the beta seems to be best thing to do per posts above? Is there a way to get rid of the website and patch detail at the bottom of the screen? Using 200% interface and unit size for my tired eyes, so the website and build number is distracting. Line of site penalty for friendlies in front of shooter?
Tanks :)
There’s a new morale check when you move into a ZoC and it might lower resolve. Also, if you try moving out of a ZoC the opponent gets a free attack of opportunity. Other than that, I’m not sure.
Sweet, I’ve wanted the option to do this since I saw those guys walking around.
For my starting characters first level ups what do you all suggest? go for health, or defense? something else? Thanks :)
Defense for sure. Give them all shields and work on defense as the initial skills for most.