Battle Brothers Hits Early Access

Games
1555

In addition to choosing easy/easy I went with random events and this time it looks like I rolled a war among the noble houses. A message came up about banners flying and crowds gathering and someone saying something along the lines of ‘this is war.’

I’ve not had this event pop before. So what exactly should I be expecting? Whenever I encounter noble house troops they are decked out in very expensive gear and impossible to afford, for me at any rate, weapons. If I have to mix it up with those fellas there is no way my guys in their 110 hp chainmail are going to last very long.

I don’t mind getting fucked but I do want to enjoy it.

1556

You should be doing most of the major fights against the nobles, with some nobles on your side as well. I remember two epic fights. I survived the second fight, but had just a few guys left. Then I think another event fired that I couldn’t handle with my remnants and I gave up and retired.

I don’t know if it is harder than the “Orc” end game, but I was able to beat the Orcs.

Those were two amazing fights that I really enjoyed, before ultimately losing.

1557

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one that gets destroyed by the game. Misery loves company and all that.

Read some of the guides, I learned a crap ton about different approaches to crew builds.

My issue is that since of the leveled up crew in those guides look incredible but these players must have the best luck with character rolls. Getting crappy recruits is one way the RNG crushes you even before the first battle.

1558

I seriously only started doing well and actually “winning” from watching many, many plays of Filthy Robot. He is on his 16th season and each one has about 30+ videos that he live streamed. He is only doing one now as a result of the new free content as he had not done one in a long while, but he’s been live streaming it more than anyone since the early days.

I’ve never watched more than 30 minutes of any other live stream, but I loved the tactics, and while supremely difficult, I was determined to learn the game and actually play well. I first wacthed all of his tips and tricks videos. Then I started watching full seasons.

Anyway, I was similarly terrible, gave up and would not have figured it out by playing and learning. I think I play on medium difficulty and only save scum with total wipes. Played about 150 hours on the Switch and a similar amount on Steam.

So, I have no practical advice, but if you really want to figure it out, start with his tips and tricks. Some of the smaller details are outdated as many of those are from early builds and it has been tweaked a lot, but the basics are still applicable.

Once I really learned the game, it became my favorite tactical game and that’s pretty much my favorite genre, but you have to be waaaay more patient with your tactics than with any other game I have played and the margin of error is thin. YMMV. :)

1559

I thought Uruk:The Desolation was very good. The “tactical crunchiness” in my opinion is there. I liked it more than BB as I believe there are way more opinions in combat. I also thought the dice rolls didn’t punish you as much. I swore BB cheated :)

1560

I don’t think BB “cheated” - I think what looks like cheating is just human perception error (we don’t remember all the many slightly lucky or unlucky rolls we get but for sure remember when the RNG screws us royally). However, I do think there is an underlying flaw (or maybe just a design disagreement between me and the devs) in that BB was intentionally designed to have those random number ranges (for example weapon damage can be HIGHLY variable) plus on top of that the locational damage can cause one-shotting with no warning. The high damage variability and the highly variable locational damage system are all choices made by the devs.

I like a great deal of what’s in BB but ultimately I don’t like the “you can die with no warning, no options, and no bad choices on your part and YOU WILL LIKE IT!” philosophy.

1561

I wish there was a difficulty level that gave you more money and things cost less than the easiest level in the game.

1562

I agree. Urtuk is great.

1563

Thanks for the write-up of Urtuk. BB is one of my fave games even if I’m pretty terrible at it. Urtuk sounds like something similar and a happy end point. Nice description of it in the Urtuk thread. And if there is anything else in a similar vein you’d recommend, I’d subscribe to your newsletter.

1564

Oh man, I keep forgetting to check this out - everyone seems to love it and I’m sure I would as well, but at this point I’m just waiting for a Switch version, I think. Though, looking for such a thing it seems unlikely - in 2020 the developer was “interested” in doing it bit cited technical hurdles and challenges. Probably was too cost prohibitive. I should just get it on Steam and hope to play it on Steam Deck some day.

EDIT: Might be wise to wait a bit - on top of other games to play, I thought I’d see when the next Steam sale is happening.

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Less than three weeks and it seems like this Urtuk would nicely fit into the catagory of games that would be on sale at that time!

1565

Hear, hear!

On easy the combat is challenging enough that heads still fly for my beleaguered crew. But I never seem to get ahead with coin, and my brothers existence is hand to mouth, always scrounging for supplies, slightly better gear, etc. Yes, I ‘dagger down’ foes to nab their gear when it seems safe to do so, but that is never enough and replacing my losses is expensive.

1566

Yeah, I checked isthereanydeal and the historical low was last month.

Historical Low Steam on 2022-03-05 45% off $10.99

1567

Thanks. Regarding anything in the same vein, it’s not out yet but I’m very much looking forward to Zodiac Legion by our very own @Galdred.

1568

Thanks for reminding me of this everyone. I re-installed, played on Normal/Normal, and within 2 hours my newbie crew of mercenaries was hunted down in the snowy woods by a pack of slavering wolves. They all died, to the last man. Good times, good times.

1569

Wow, this blows my mind a little. I don’t think of Battle Brothers as hard at all. Considering I’ve had to rely on Scotch_Lufkin advice to survive multiple other games, I’m stunned to find one where I appear to be having a much easier time than others with this game lol

FYI I found playing the peasants with a higher army count SUPER easy. Very quickly marching over the enemies. I will admit I did learn lessons that there are some mission types to avoid near the beginning, that make it far easier to grow your crew skills before you start taking losses. I also have a few skills that are my front line go tos, that nearly all my crew have that make the game go much easier. I really should play again, haven’t played in like 6 months since my last run.

Ive had great success with a largely shield wall config with a few tweaks. Like 2 range attackers makes the ai more inclined to charge you verse you having to advance on them, my pike guys are the real killers for range though.

To deal with nightmares i always buy dogs and having all fighters armed with dogs to deploy against nightmares, who are usually a bane to a shield defense strategy, and thus are utterly countered.

There are specific strategies I use to pick my people, and how they synergize with their roles I slot them to, but I’m sure there are strategy guides aplenty on that.

Except for a few questions I had to look up, I found this game fairly intuitive and represent the light challenge i like, where team wipes almost never happen, and at most I lose a person or take some injuries in a battle that takes time to heal from.

Seeing so many people say it’s challenging is, I admit, a huge ego boost, when I’ve come to accept my TBI has really crippled my savvy for strategical thinking.

Swords are great for newbe fighters with the aim bonus, but I love the multi head fails to really wreck an enemy, and basically train fighters to them to as many as i can buy (they are rare). Head hits mean I usually lose the enemy helm, but often keep the armor and shields from fallen enemies.

1570

LOL well, it blows my mind anyone would listen to me! :) I’m glad this is a game that just clicks with you - it’s awesome when that happens - but I think for myself I keep wanting it to be something it’s really not. I’d love this to be more like a Final Fantasy Tactics where you keep growing your characters and they get more powerful and better gear and you face tougher foes*. The reality is when I lose a few characters I feel like I’ve fucked it up and I need to stop worrying about losing a guy here and there. I’ve made decent progress the last few times I tried to play this, honestly, it’s just that I seem to allow myself to bounce off it before my mistakes can lead into learning better ways to play.

*To be clear, I want this because I love the world and gameplay they are crafting here, and want to do more with it.

1571

Thank you for the mention!
Zodiac legion inspiration comes more from X-COM (for the geoscape) mixed with traditional tabletop dungeon crawler(descent with a touch of blood bowl for support mechanisms), but yes there are a lot of things we’d like to borrow from battle brothers too!
I really like how they teach you the game without a tutorial, the great feedback in combat, and the way your random characters can have an interesting personality.
But one of the things I like the list is how they managed to make the weapons feel different.

1572

Wishlisted!

1573

Yes, BB is one of those games where if you kit your newbies with the best weapons, they die even faster. You have to look at how you skill up your people (and what their skills are). Most of my men never go above chain mail or medium armor because you really need someone talented with endurance to last even a few turns with the best gear. Somewhat the same with weapons, throwing epic gear at newbies means they almost never hit. Finding the trick of looking at the traits your men have talent in and building a general strategy that fits those skill distributions, is key.

For me I end up testing all potential new recruits, look at their past career path and make a call if ill hire them to try them out. Even then i only keep about 75% of those, as I weed those that don’t have useful skill bonuses that will work with the strategy I have in mind.

1574

This kind of hits on my problem with the game. Other games in the genre have a meta organization to improve that makes new recruits more effective or easier to train. So while I’ll take a recruit from level 1 to 10 many times in the course of a game, it’s hardest when I’m doing it for the first time (when it’s the most interesting), but gets simpler after that when it becomes routine. They’ve started doing this with the retinue but I don’t remember it changing all that much.

When an Orc gets lucky and beheads my front line tank, I really don’t want to scout out and train up another one because it’s so much work. It’s just a reset and I can’t leverage my previous progression at all.