Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[vonAchdorf]

I like the direction you are taking for the game. I love believable, reactive open worlds since the first Pirates!.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Updates sound good,

but

I have hard time trying to make sense of the battle map when fighting in forests. Flipping the map around helps a bit, but it's still a mess. Any plans to make it clearer, or are you fine with it as it is? (Or am I missing somethign obvious in gameplay options?)

 

[rapsdjff]

We'll eventually redo the combat map assets as we add the remaining ones and see where that leaves us. If still necessary by then, we have a bunch of different approaches in mind on how to improve usability on maps with dense vegetation. Won't be for a while, though, as we focus on the worldmap for now.

 

[Eyestabber]

Yeah, forest fights are a clusterfuck. I always do my best to avoid them.

 

[Rellin]

I would never have found this game if not for Codex and this thread. I bought it Friday night and have played 14 hours so far. Loving it.

 

[Eyeball]

Yeah, forest fights are a clusterfuck. I always do my best to avoid them.

Depends very much on what you're fighting - vs hordes of onrushing enemies that outnumber you like basic undead, forest fighting is by far the easiest way of taking them out via bottlenecking.

Against goblins, however, you're screwed.

 

[Abu Antar]

I just bought this. When is the estimated release date? I have been reading posts in this thread, but I have also skipped many.

 

[anus_pounder]

I just bought this. When is the estimated release date? I have been reading posts in this thread, but I have also skipped many.

THe next update (which overhauls the entire overworld experience, read the past few updates here or on steam for details) is expected in a few weeks, if not months, time. So the estimated release date is basically thursday, 20XX.

 

[Alienman]

Looking forward to thursday 20XX

 

[kazgar]

This is sounding better and better all the time.

Hope there's a way of sharing map seeds, or saving the game and exporting it post world-generation but before anything happens. Be interesting to send the same world to different people and see how the playthrough changes based on player actions (or just AI actions causing differences)

 

[Abu Antar]

THe next update (which overhauls the entire overworld experience, read the past few updates here or on steam for details) is expected in a few weeks, if not months, time. So the estimated release date is basically thursday, 20XX.

I hope I am still alive by that time.

 

[Sranchammer]

Having this and Sovereignty update in December would be good to me

 

[Reinhardt]

I bought game months ago, but will wait for full release. My willpower is stronk.

 

[Lucky]

I just bought this. When is the estimated release date? I have been reading posts in this thread, but I have also skipped many.

Early-access started in April and they were planning on fully releasing it a year later, so April-June 2016 would be the current estimation.

 

[agris]

This is sounding better and better all the time.

Hope there's a way of sharing map seeds, or saving the game and exporting it post world-generation but before anything happens. Be interesting to send the same world to different people and see how the playthrough changes based on player actions (or just AI actions causing differences)

This is a great suggestion. Saving map seeds is a low cost, gamer friendly feature.

 

[rapsdjff]

Good idea, that's something we can do.

 

[rapsdjff]

Dev Blog #58: Progress Update – Factions, Part 2
Last week we’ve talked about the introduction of different human factions to the world of Battle Brothers, another important feature that will change how the game is played. We’ll continue this now and talk some more about noble houses, settlements and relations, as well as what place Orcs and Goblins now have. Let’s get started!

Settlements
We’ve already talked previously about how settlements on the new worldmap are quite a bit more numerous and diverse. What you probably don’t know is that those settlements are also small factions of their own. Whether independent or controlled by a noble house, these factions are represented by a mayor, elder or ruling council and have their own agenda – mainly revolving around protecting their people and trade opportunities. Consequently, they’ll offer different kinds of contracts to the player than noble houses might do. Less concerned with global politics, and more about what is going on in their immediate area.

Noble houses each start with a small region consisting of several settlements under their control. For most, that isn’t enough, however, so they’ll seek to gain control over more settlements, whether they’re neutral or need to be wrestled from the hands of other house. Depending on a noble house’s traits they have a variety of measures to bring a settlement in their sphere of influence. This can be precious bribes, intimidating village elders or helping settlements against threats like orc raids. The conflict between noble houses while competing over settlements will be one of the core drives behind the game by creating various contracts for the player to pick up.



Noble houses don’t rely entirely on mercenaries, of course, but can also muster troops of their own. The above image shows a selection of shields and armor bearing their banner for a nicely consistent look on the battlefield.

Relations
In order for the world to feel reactive to the player’s behavior and to introduce more consequences to your actions, we’re introducing a relations mechanic. The player will have a relation value to each and every faction, including independent settlements, and this value determines how positive or negative the player is viewed by them. For example, relations will drop if the player attacks a village’s trade caravan or does anything else detrimental to that village. On the other hand, relations will improve when the player helps out a faction by completing contracts for them.

Relations can have consequences all the way from lower prices, better contract conditions and more potential recruits, down to merchants refusing to sell anything to the player out of spite or even people attacking the player on sight. Because completing contracts for one faction may often be to the detriment of another, it’s up to the player to navigate in a way that they don’t make more enemies than they need to.

Other Factions
The enemies will also see some changes in order to fit into the new order of things. Much like the different human noble houses, Orcs and Goblins, too, now consist of several individual factions. Different Orc clans will act independently from another, and will for the most part also attack each other. The same holds true for different Goblin city states.



For the new worldmap, we want the different kinds of enemies to feel much more distinct, both by where they appear and by what kinds of actions they can perform. To be more in line with their lore, Orcs will now truly be nomadic in nature; individual clans are massive hordes that never stay in one place for long and leave a wake of destruction wherever they happen to travel. Goblins, as per their lore, will now live in large underground cities in mountains.


What about the greater evil? As we explained in last week’s progress update, we want to shift the game’s focus away from the notion of a single great threat every game that also determines the winning condition of a playthrough. This concept just doesn’t fit well the open world approach we decided to go for. Not all is lost, however, as Orcs, Goblins and Undead can now experience special events causing a surge in power. As individual orc clans unite for a time and sweep across the world, or the undead rise from their graves, new challenges arise for the player. Repelling an invasion such as this will no longer end the game or be a winning condition, but will bring variety to the game and change the playing field without constricting you to follow a linear story.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Very interesting.
What are you having in your mind for the endgame scenario, then?

 

[Trash]

Love this update. I was a bit miffed about them deciding to ditch the 'rising big evil' angle and going for a more generic mercenary approach. This however sounds...excellent. Well thought out and ambitious to booth. That these guys have some talent has been clear since I first started playing Battle Brothers. Love the game. Been loving it for quite some time. Can't wait to see what it will play like in awhile.

 

[Alienman]

I like the m&b approach but I'm not sure if it will work as well as in m&b. Well, since from what I understand you will always just be a mercenary gang. Or will you be able to form your own faction or become lord under someone?

 

[Lucky]

Some thoughts regarding the concept art for the banners of the Orcs. The colours for the undead banners being muted due to decay makes sense, but I'd suggest making them a bit brighter for the Orcs. The whole point of banners is that they can be seen from afar and thus usually incorporate bright colours, so having the Orcs use a subdued colour scheme looks a bit weird. Same goes for their revamped colour scheme in general, with the dark earthy tones being more suited to a well organised militaristic culture - not a nomadic culture where status and martial prowess are intertwined.

Very interesting.
What are you having in your mind for the endgame scenario, then?

Curious about this as well. I really liked the Greater Evil approach in how it framed human politics against the looming threats of the world. It made it feel different from the more historical games that focus on human conflicts. The new approach sounds more like the factions are all equal to a degree, so politics become much more important thematically and humanity no longer really feels as threatened. No idea yet if that is how it'll work in practice, though, so I'm curious how it'll turn out. Is a different sort of climax planned now, or will the game become fully open-ended?

 

[Jack Dandy]

Also, depite this going a more realistic route, please don't drop the dungeon maps idea, ah?

 

[PeachPlumage]

Keeping an eye on this. Medieval matryoshka dolls of incline.

 

[Copper]

I think having a 'beat the game' end-goal is good. You can do a Paradox and just have player head-canon goals (kill the English/colonise the world/survive as a shitty HHR state) within X time, but something more dramatic would be good. Maybe they could be more intimate, though - choose a personal retirement ambition for your merc commander such as becoming a noble, raising a worthy successor, get revenge on faction X - with the option to keep playing after achieving these ambitions.

 

[Lucky]

I think having a 'beat the game' end-goal is good. You can do a Paradox and just have player head-canon goals (kill the English/colonise the world/survive as a shitty HHR state) within X time, but something more dramatic would be good. Maybe they could be more intimate, though - choose a personal retirement ambition for your merc commander such as becoming a noble, raising a worthy successor, get revenge on faction X - with the option to keep playing after achieving these ambitions.

It's not just having an end-goal to work towards, but there being some sort of climax that has build up preceding it so that you get satisfaction out of achieving said goal. Paradox games don't end, they peter out. They don't have a proper ending that the game builds towards, but a point at which you get bored and stop playing the game. Similarly, retirement goals aren't real endings either unless you craft different scenarios for them that influence how the game-world works – taking revenge on a faction makes little sense and is boring if they play no role of note in the world, leave you alone and end up getting wiped out by someone else.

In a game that revolves around tactical combat, there needs to be a fitting rise in challenge and threat escalation for the ending itself to be meaningful to the player. This was nicely doable with the Greater Evil approach because the enemies rise in power made sense within the context of the game (Orc hordes unifying, resulting in them going from local to national threats) and their defeat made sense as both a climax (the enemy has been beaten at their absolute peak) and a point from which the player could continue should they choose to (the enemy has been scattered, but not eradicated). That's why I'm curious about whether they have something else in mind as the climax now that they've moved away from that and towards a game where there is more of an ebb and flow to the world.