Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Ninjerk]

there are no hand-made unique mercenaries in the game. All people and their traits are procedurally generated. There's a lot of events that cover interaction between mercenaries already (including teaching events), and we'll keep on adding more.

Some of your procedurally generated mercenaries are better than the hand-made NPCs of most cRPGs.

That's true. Some of the mercenaries have a very interesting background and it fits really well their actual combat "profile".

Recently I bought one named Ulfert for a lot of monies(~9k). The description was like he was some legendary swordsmen who's been left to the sea for 300 days and learned how to fight balancing on a piece of flotsam. Turns out he really lives up to his description. He came with a noble sword and a double grip trait(+25% dmg with offhand free). Of course I picked dodge and nimble and increased his initiative(which was already high when I picked him). Well, I was doing a patrolling quest when I got attacked by many wolfriding goblins. Ulfert got surrounded by 3 or 4 of them and I used Riposte. He managed to dodge everything and killed all 4 in one single turn with counter-attacks. It was a thing of beauty.

 

[tiagocc0]

Doing a quick balls to the walls run using a bunch of beggar fishermen. Loving how this is rounding out. Nice job Bros!

*EDIT*

Saw an inventory bug whereby from the market I switch to Bros inventories. I dragged Studded Leather off a Bro to the stash and it disappeared. was my best armor too

You didn't lose, it is just way below on your inventory, sort it or scroll down and you will find it.
I reported this 'bug' but I think they will never fix it since you actually don't lose the item, it should go back to where it was if you drag it to a bro pic since the bro isn't part of the inventory.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Many nice little touches in this game. Lots of attention given to coherent themes in music, art and writing and gameplay. Toss in procrdurally generated content and this can have real staying power.

Forget indie, you guys are making something pretty unique and special IMO. This is as good as I hope KoTC2 might be.

Doing a quick balls to the walls run using a bunch of beggar fishermen. Loving how this is rounding out. Nice job Bros!

*EDIT*

Saw an inventory bug whereby from the market I switch to Bros inventories. I dragged Studded Leather off a Bro to the stash and it disappeared. was my best armor too

You didn't lose, it is just way below on your inventory, sort it or scroll down and you will find it.
I reported this 'bug' but I think they will never fix it since you actually don't lose the item, it should go back to where it was if you drag it to a bro pic since the bro isn't part of the inventory.

Some inventory management buttons would be nice. Filters, sorting etc.

 

[Helly]

He came with a noble sword and a double grip trait(+25% dmg with offhand free).

The double grip thingie is not a trait as a matter of fact, it's a bonus all mercs get when fighting with one hand free.

Some inventory management buttons would be nice. Filters, sorting etc.

There are filters and a "Sort inventory" button since like 2/3 updates.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Some inventory management buttons would be nice. Filters, sorting etc.

Aren't there already buttons for sorting and filtering? Or do you look for even more functionality?

 

[Beowulf]

Recently I bought one named Ulfert for a lot of monies(~9k). The description was like he was some legendary swordsmen who's been left to the sea for 300 days and learned how to fight balancing on a piece of flotsam. Turns out he really lives up to his description. He came with a noble sword and a double grip trait(+25% dmg with offhand free). Of course I picked dodge and nimble and increased his initiative(which was already high when I picked him). Well, I was doing a patrolling quest when I got attacked by many wolfriding goblins. Ulfert got surrounded by 3 or 4 of them and I used Riposte. He managed to dodge everything and killed all 4 in one single turn with counter-attacks. It was a thing of beauty.

Just wait when you encounter other band with a swordsman. How long it has been since you saw your hitchance <10%? :D

Saw an inventory bug whereby from the market I switch to Bros inventories. I dragged Studded Leather off a Bro to the stash and it disappeared. was my best armor too

Are you sure it didn't drop somewhere to the bottom of the stash - it happened to me in previous versions (didn't have time to play the most recent updates yet).

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Quite right, it was lower in my stash. I guess earlier I didn;t have enough loot to see that the sort by type worked as expected.

Sir Wolfgang getting a little while awaiting my return:

 

[Got bored and left]

Ha, I saw that same thing today too, interactions with nobles are pretty great. Another one I liked was with some noble throwing lots of perfectly good food to his dogs - my mercs thought it was completely messed up. Things like these give this game so much character, I love it.

 

[Jrpgfan]

He came with a noble sword and a double grip trait(+25% dmg with offhand free).

The double grip thingie is not a trait as a matter of fact, it's a bonus all mercs get when fighting with one hand free.

You're right. Didn't realize the trait shows up when you equip an 1h sword and leave the offhand free.

He still came with high initiative and high melee defense though, so I'm assuming the game "wanted" me to make him this way.

 

[zeitgeist]

Ha, I saw that same thing today too, interactions with nobles are pretty great. Another one I liked was with some noble throwing lots of perfectly good food to his dogs - my mercs thought it was completely messed up.

Can you kill them though? Or would that be too M&B-like?

 

[Namutree]

Yes, as a non-combat leader character with perks that have a company-wide effect and allow the player to customize the company better to their play style, as well as to add to replayability. Not sure if it'll make it into the initial release, however.

Please do this! I'd be very happy.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Well my rag tag bunch is still rolling. Thought I would checkout the recent builds. 13 hours later (in 2 days) and I am whistling the tunes around the house.

Is an iron-man mode (independent of difficulty level) planned? Would make a hell of an iron-man game.

 

[Agesilaus]

Well my rag tag bunch is still rolling. Thought I would checkout the recent builds. 13 hours later (in 2 days) and I am whistling the tunes around the house.

Is an iron-man mode (independent of difficulty level) planned? Would make a hell of an iron-man game.

Iron-man is the only way to play this game. Just use the F5 button to quicksave after every battle in case of a crash, but otherwise all it takes is a little discipline. Total party wipe is painful, but that's the price we pay.

 

[Got bored and left]

Ha, I saw that same thing today too, interactions with nobles are pretty great. Another one I liked was with some noble throwing lots of perfectly good food to his dogs - my mercs thought it was completely messed up.

Can you kill them though? Or would that be too M&B-like?

No clue, I haven't gotten any contracts to fight noble houses yet, nor did I piss any of them off enough to go after me (which I think can be done). As for the option to straight up attack them unprovoked, that's a no, you can't even attack neutral/fiendly parties on the world map as of yet, not to mention individual characters who only pop for contract negotiations. That's actually interesting, do nobles ever go out in the field along with their troops?

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I have had opportunity to attack caravans though only through CYOA sequences, not a physical caravan on the road.

Sometimes CYOA sequences for raiding farms, related to Bros backgrounds and traits as well. In one instance I forced a Bro who doesn't eat much. He had gotten weak from lack of food even though we had plenty to eat. As a result he overcame his Spartan trait. Others as well. Awesome to see this stuff in the game.

 

[Namutree]

I played the game again today. I'd just like reiterate that the tutorial is pure cancer. The game is otherwise fine.

 

[Agesilaus]

Bring back the old tutorial. If you're worried about people getting confused, just automatically issue the first contract immediately upon start.

 

[Ulminati]

"Skip tutorial" check box on new game screen in the next version plz

Yes, as a non-combat leader character with perks that have a company-wide effect and allow the player to customize the company better to their play style, as well as to add to replayability. Not sure if it'll make it into the initial release, however.

Please do this! I'd be very happy.

I suggested this a while back. Except instead of the company-wide perks being tied to a player-character, they were combat doctrines for the mercenary company as a whole. The main difference would be that newly recruited company members would not immediately gain their benefit. Rather, they'd learn them over x days or y battles. A doctrine and it's associated bonuses would spread from battle brother to battle brother, the spec increasing the more people in your band has it. That would also mean that if you lose a large number of men in a fight, it will take a long time for replacements to be trained back up. And if you are extremely unlucky, you might lose a doctrine altogether as the last bro who knew it dies

 

[Lurker King]

The double grip thingie is not a trait as a matter of fact, it's a bonus all mercs get when fighting with one hand free.

Jesus, you are right! They should put a tip about this in the game.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

The double grip thingie is not a trait as a matter of fact, it's a bonus all mercs get when fighting with one hand free.

Jesus, you are right! They should put a tip about this in the game.

If attacking a character who has already moved, Bros with support and quick hands could remove their shields to finish him off. I did that last night.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

"Skip tutorial" check box on new game screen in the next version plz

Yes, as a non-combat leader character with perks that have a company-wide effect and allow the player to customize the company better to their play style, as well as to add to replayability. Not sure if it'll make it into the initial release, however.

Please do this! I'd be very happy.

I suggested this a while back. Except instead of the company-wide perks being tied to a player-character, they were combat doctrines for the mercenary company as a whole. The main difference would be that newly recruited company members would not immediately gain their benefit. Rather, they'd learn them over x days or y battles. A doctrine and it's associated bonuses would spread from battle brother to battle brother, the spec increasing the more people in your band has it. That would also mean that if you lose a large number of men in a fight, it will take a long time for replacements to be trained back up. And if you are extremely unlucky, you might lose a doctrine altogether as the last bro who knew it dies

Great idea. If I had to choose though, I would vote for many more CYOA scenarios and flavour text. They are doing a great job on those already and I suspect your idea would need significant development.

 

[Abu Antar]

Make the tutorial optional and that solves everything.

 

[Agesilaus]

The old tutorial was awesome. Aside from the 1 marksman, it was a bandit thug beat down. Who doesn't like to start every game by steamrolling a bunch of bandit thugs? If you were still eager for a fight, you also had the choice to walk an additional 10 seconds and engage in a zombie brawl. All of this occurred next to a city, too, so there were plenty of mercs and equipment to choose from.

 

[Lucky]

No update as expected, but a dev blog.

Dev Blog #73: Progress Update - Marching on

As mentioned in last weeks posting we will now shift to longer periods between updates as we go back to tackle the larger issues at hand. This is why there will be no update to the game today. However, we will let you know what we are working on right now:

More Contracts

As promised we are working on more contracts for you to take on in the game. These will come in batches and we have two new in the works for the next larger update. There will be one contract for settlements and one for noble houses with one being about exploration and the other about doing some ambushing for all you highwaymen out there. Of course both will come with their own twists for that extra variety.

UI Rework

Reworking the UI is a rather large task and is still ongoing. On top of that, it will probably keep us busy on the side for quite a while. We are aware that this is not a very spectacular topic and it offers little entertainment for the players but it has to be done better sooner than later as it stands in the way of some planned features.

Faction Warfare

We have secretly been working for quite a while on a way to get warfare between the noble houses into the game. Currently the noble houses have a rather passive role in the world. We want them to have a real dynamic conflict for superiority with the player being able to tip the scales in a certain direction. However, this is still in an early development phase and you can expect a dedicated blog article on this in the future.

Multi-Tile Combat Objects

With the tactical combat environments all done we have started working on some objects you might find on the battle maps starting out with camp equipment like crates, boxes, tents, fire pits and so on.

More importantly, we have found a way to implement multi-tile objects in the tactical combat that are basically as large as we want them to be. These objects now offer the possibility to have small buildings like ruined huts, crypts or tents on the battle maps. This way locations on the worldmap can be displayed in the tactical combat for more interesting combat environments. Imagine a camp surrounded by palisades with only small entrances or a graveyard with a crypt surrounded by lots of graves and tomb stones. Here is a first look at what you can expect:

 

[Thonius]

Any word on formation?