Incline Battle Brothers + Beasts & Exploration, Warriors of the North and Blazing Deserts DLC Thread

[Sarissofoi]

I watched this video and shook my head as the zombies you painstakingly shivved reanimated with their armor and weapons equipped and you had to shiv them all over again... If you're going to do this with zombies shouldn't one of your guys go pick up the loot when it drops?

I will do that if I would face Fallen Heroes just to take their weapons.
Overall its mostly not worth the effort and I want to preserve my high ground positions.

I thought you couldn't pick up loot?

You can but only weapons/quivers/shields/
Also it more of disarming them than looting.

Does looting works for other enemies than zombies?

When you kill(or get killed) the killed drop(not always) a bag. Its contain a weapons/shields/quivers that you will get loot at the end of the fight.
Sometimes zombies do not drop weapons but still raise with them if autoresurected.
If your guys do not drop weapons when killed they probably survive with permanent injury.

 

[Jimmious]

I think you dont get loot when you retreat but I cant say for sure

 

[Parabalus]

Won a 30 min battle vs 30 orcs only for the game to crash after looting .

 

[Prime Junta]

you're a fucking degenerate and you're playing it wrong. ironman is meant to give you the experience of a real journey with real consequences to your dumb actions. when that journey ends you can start a new one and have a whole new experience of a whole new journey hopefully with other dumb mistakes.

My complaint is that the ironman journey is either short or boring. Either you go out in a blaze of glory on a three-skull mission, or you grind safe boring ones until the endgame. Not like Nethack.

 

[Skittles]

you're a fucking degenerate and you're playing it wrong. ironman is meant to give you the experience of a real journey with real consequences to your dumb actions. when that journey ends you can start a new one and have a whole new experience of a whole new journey hopefully with other dumb mistakes.

My complaint is that the ironman journey is either short or boring. Either you go out in a blaze of glory on a three-skull mission, or you grind safe boring ones until the endgame. Not like Nethack.

I think you're overstating it a bit--you can play without being either suicidal or as stodgy as a footstool. So long as you know that 3-skull greenskins is worse than 3-skull recovery & cemetary runs are worse than 3-skull delivery and so on, you can make relatively informed decisions about which to take. By a few weeks in, you should be empowered to deal with 3-skull contracts of the right kind and if you misjudge, you run and cancel the contract. It's a pretty minor setback compared with decimation.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Says the savescummer who always plays on veteran.

Yeah that.

I dunno, perhaps 3-skull contracts are intended for savescummers. Another option, then, would be to create more variety for one- and two-skull ones.

Seriously, I think there is a bit of an issue here: I won't take caravan runs because they're a total coin-toss. I won't take orc contracts because they're too high-risk. I won't take gobbo contracts because they don't pay enough. Which means I'll only do bandit contracts, item recovery contracts, artefact recovery contracts, bandit defence, hunts, and patrols, and those only if they're one or two skulls. That's it.

Point being, I think Ironman needs different balancing than non-Ironman, since in non-Ironman cost of failure is zero (you just reload).

you're a fucking degenerate and you're playing it wrong. ironman is meant to give you the experience of a real journey with real consequences to your dumb actions. when that journey ends you can start a new one and have a whole new experience of a whole new journey hopefully with other dumb mistakes. play some roguelikes once in a while or don't touch ironman. you are obviously not worthy.
on a side note, the game is very slow for a roguelike experience and that stupid first battle should be removed asap but ironman should never be balanced around non-ironman like you are suggesting. non ironman should not even exist. it serves no purpose whatsoever. what is the point in making a game with so much random shit going on and then giving the player the possibility of reloading???

I personally play on Beginner but I don't reload ever even after a total party kill. Only time I do reload is when the game crashes and it's been doing that a couple of times. So I don't choose "Ironman" in the game but I just don't reload either.

 

[Sarissofoi]

you're a fucking degenerate and you're playing it wrong. ironman is meant to give you the experience of a real journey with real consequences to your dumb actions. when that journey ends you can start a new one and have a whole new experience of a whole new journey hopefully with other dumb mistakes.

My complaint is that the ironman journey is either short or boring. Either you go out in a blaze of glory on a three-skull mission, or you grind safe boring ones until the endgame. Not like Nethack.

I think you're overstating it a bit--you can play without being either suicidal or as stodgy as a footstool. So long as you know that 3-skull greenskins is worse than 3-skull recovery & cemetary runs are worse than 3-skull delivery and so on, you can make relatively informed decisions about which to take. By a few weeks in, you should be empowered to deal with 3-skull contracts of the right kind and if you misjudge, you run and cancel the contract. It's a pretty minor setback compared with decimation.

He is right.
Either you do contracts or battles you know that you can reliable win with minimal to no losses or you suffer losses that put you in the back by at last few hours grind.
My current situation in expert Ironman YT campaign. Company called Codex Guards.
>contract taken in noble war to do some raiding
>on the way two company of noble soldiers start pursuing me, one 12, 2nd 16 soldiers
>run making them split ways wipe smaller one with no problem
>at the target settlement big company of enemy soldeirs march at me 27 guys big nope
>on the way back get attacked by 2nd company of soldiers 16 of them
>fight is bloody I lose 7 men and retreat(thought that I can win even with losses but made some mistakes)
>my bannerman and one archer is dead
>some promising trainees are dead
>old veterans are dead
>anyway I lost not only seven men but also their weapons and armor
>sure I have 10k gold and spare equipment but I can not afford high end mercs and rabble will just die easily (so more grind)
>even if I could afford high end merc - they still fairly low leveled
>anyway I also lose reputation because canceled contract
>and my company mood plummet to the bottom
That is only noble war and not green or undead invasion so relax but if it was the other two it would not end well.

It would be fine if you could ammas reserve to actually hire high level replacements but mercenary work is no profitable at all.

In short its not old xcom were you were alright as in the end you kill aliens and seize ufo. Here any losses are setback and more grind as most battles just offer little profit. ans there is no way to replace exp grind anyway.
I lost more than 50 men in this gameplay. Day is around 120.
Its not like I can not recover but it would make more grind. because taking risks kill people.

 

[Skittles]

It would be fine if you could ammas reserve to actually hire high level replacements but mercenary work is no profitable at all.

In short its not old xcom were you were alright as in the end you kill aliens and seize ufo. Here any losses are setback and more grind as most battles just offer little profit. ans there is no way to replace exp grind anyway.
I lost more than 50 men in this gameplay. Day is around 120.

I also lose a bro nearly every other day in a typical playthrough. I trade, exploit patrol contracts for maximum rewards, favour lower tier backgrounds when hiring, rely on a deep reserve instead of temple healing, slap Student on everyone, go after every small enemy band I come across, and never buy any armour except on days 1-3 or when I'm advancing past mail. This will net you tens of thousands in reserve for serious party losses. Mind you, this is veteran not expert, but I repeat that he's overstating the "dead in a week or boring 1-skull contracts for months" dichotomy. There is a middle path. You just need to have a strong strategic game and accept that you will have to retire before the end game crisis sometimes if you misjudge.

 

[miles teg]

I had a very frustrating session this evening. Enemies are starting to be tough and well equipped and some guys from my core team were killed. How am I supposes to replace level 6 bros? I can only hire lvl1 and 2 dudes that can't survive a fight. Every level 1 recruit I hired was dead after the next fight: if I use expensive equipment they don't have enough fatigue to do shit; if I use light armor they get one shotted. How do I nurse rookies into semi decent fighters around day 100, when most enemies are with tower shields and heavy armor?

On a side note my level 1 polearm bro missed ALL his attacks, while a level 6 polearm fighter was hitting like hell, even with a lower attack score. Either it was bad luck, or bros' level is used in chance-to-hit formula

 

[Skittles]

I had a very frustrating session this evening. Enemies are starting to be tough and well equipped and some guys from my core team were killed. How am I supposes to replace level 6 bros? I can only hire lvl1 and 2 dudes that can't survive a fight. Every level 1 recruit I hired was dead after the next fight: if I use expensive equipment they don't have enough fatigue to do shit; if I use light armor they get one shotted. How do I nurse rookies into semi decent fighters around day 100, when most enemies are with tower shields and heavy armor?

On a side note my level 1 polearm bro missed ALL his attacks, while a level 6 polearm fighter was hitting like hell, even with a lower attack score. Either it was bad luck, or bros' level is used in chance-to-hit formula

Plan on having a couple of rooks who just don't have enough fatigue to contribute meaningfully to combat every battle in the game and keep a deep reserve. Give 'em a big shield, have them shield wall up or actually run from the fighting until they have a couple of levels under their belt. Seek combat constantly to rack up battle experience--every group of fewer than 8 enemies should be attacked unless they have a significant orc warrior, bandit marskman, or fallen hero+ presence. Student helps, which is why I swear by it. Do polearms if you're desperate for bodies, of course.

So you should not be fielding 12 bros at level six in most battles, you should be fielding e.g. 8 L6, 2 L3-5, and 2 L1-2 bros, and be maintaining around 18 including reserves. That way it hurts way less when you lose a top ranked guy.

 

[Sarissofoi]

It would be fine if you could ammas reserve to actually hire high level replacements but mercenary work is no profitable at all.

In short its not old xcom were you were alright as in the end you kill aliens and seize ufo. Here any losses are setback and more grind as most battles just offer little profit. ans there is no way to replace exp grind anyway.
I lost more than 50 men in this gameplay. Day is around 120.

I also lose a bro nearly every other day in a typical playthrough. I trade, exploit patrol contracts for maximum rewards, favour lower tier backgrounds when hiring, rely on a deep reserve instead of temple healing, slap Student on everyone, go after every small enemy band I come across, and never buy any armour except on days 1-3 or when I'm advancing past mail. This will net you tens of thousands in reserve for serious party losses. Mind you, this is veteran not expert, but I repeat that he's overstating the "dead in a week or boring 1-skull contracts for months" dichotomy. There is a middle path. You just need to have a strong strategic game and accept that you will have to retire before the end game crisis sometimes if you misjudge.

We have a old proverb here.
"Go and teach your father how to make kids"
Anyway expert is different as enemy is much numerous, scale harder and typical veteran tactics often are not that effective.

 

[Jimmious]

Dat feeling when you are kinda high level and you find a bandit camp with 15 thugs Slaughter

 

[Reapa]

He is right.
Either you do contracts or battles you know that you can reliable win with minimal to no losses or you suffer losses that put you in the back by at last few hours grind.
My current situation in expert Ironman YT campaign. Company called Codex Guards.
>contract taken in noble war to do some raiding
>on the way two company of noble soldiers start pursuing me, one 12, 2nd 16 soldiers
>run making them split ways wipe smaller one with no problem
>at the target settlement big company of enemy soldeirs march at me 27 guys big nope
>on the way back get attacked by 2nd company of soldiers 16 of them
>fight is bloody I lose 7 men and retreat(thought that I can win even with losses but made some mistakes)
>my bannerman and one archer is dead
>some promising trainees are dead
>old veterans are dead
>anyway I lost not only seven men but also their weapons and armor
>sure I have 10k gold and spare equipment but I can not afford high end mercs and rabble will just die easily (so more grind)
>even if I could afford high end merc - they still fairly low leveled
>anyway I also lose reputation because canceled contract
>and my company mood plummet to the bottom
That is only noble war and not green or undead invasion so relax but if it was the other two it would not end well.

It would be fine if you could ammas reserve to actually hire high level replacements but mercenary work is no profitable at all.

In short its not old xcom were you were alright as in the end you kill aliens and seize ufo. Here any losses are setback and more grind as most battles just offer little profit. ans there is no way to replace exp grind anyway.
I lost more than 50 men in this gameplay. Day is around 120.
Its not like I can not recover but it would make more grind. because taking risks kill people.

good time to retire if your party gets bashed like that. imagine yourself looking at 7 of your men dieing because of the choices you've made.

I had a very frustrating session this evening. Enemies are starting to be tough and well equipped and some guys from my core team were killed. How am I supposes to replace level 6 bros? I can only hire lvl1 and 2 dudes that can't survive a fight. Every level 1 recruit I hired was dead after the next fight: if I use expensive equipment they don't have enough fatigue to do shit; if I use light armor they get one shotted. How do I nurse rookies into semi decent fighters around day 100, when most enemies are with tower shields and heavy armor?

On a side note my level 1 polearm bro missed ALL his attacks, while a level 6 polearm fighter was hitting like hell, even with a lower attack score. Either it was bad luck, or bros' level is used in chance-to-hit formula

polearms is probably the best way to level up a few noobs. but if enemies have shields they must be destroyed first. a polearm must hit.

.i../../..i../../..i.
.x..I..X..I..x.

.i. = spear
./. = handaxe/hatchet
.x. = bow
.X. = xbow
.I. = polearm

try that setup for leveling noobs. it should work fine with almost any tipe of enemy. everyone in first row can equip shields and be pretty safe from both melee and ranged attacks. the spears are for flow control. you don't want enemies coming too close all at the same time, but do want a few so your polearms have something to hit while remaining safe behind the guys with shields. you can raise your shield and spear in the same turn but you do need high fatigue units if the fight lasts longer than a few turns. but you're not leveling the whole party so you should have some good man anyway. you probably want to have 3 dedicated spearmen as soon as possible so the enemy doesn't break your spearwall when it breaches it. and the rest of the front melees could have more devastating weapons in the backpack for enemies that don't carry shields. and the bowmen should have a spear and shield in the backpack in case the enemy pushes for the back line at the sides. xbowman usually has banner in my party.

 

[Sarissofoi]

I can and will recover. Thing is that only option is more grind.
Avoids risk at all cost.
Which is boring because either you stomp opposition in one sided battle or suffer losses that put you back to 'more grind before I can face serious enemy.

 

[Skittles]

We have a old proverb here.
"Go and teach your father how to make kids"
Anyway expert is different as enemy is much numerous, scale harder and typical veteran tactics often are not that effective.

He is playing on Veteran.
Anyway, if my father started talking about how great cleavers are when making children, I certainly would have a thing or two to say to him.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Guys so how we can stop this game being grind and turn it into fun to play take risk and be rewarded roguelike?
I am talking about re-balance mod that is no possible to make - right now or ever.
Idea is to have more impact on global map and not be afraid of taking losses but not to swim in gold and not facing enemy in easy one sided battles.
That mean:
-increasing rewards
-reducing number of battles(no more chasing few thugs for easy exp)but
-increasing challenge and importance of single battles
-reduce grind
So first we are leading mercenary company, let make them well know at start even if suffered losses,
-most recruits are military or semi military backgrounds
>we do not run a adventure group or people militia but professional military, like most mercenaries they are either former military, pauperized nobles&feudal warriors, hardened tribal&clan folk
That mean most of the backgrounds are gone but we get some more combat oriented(City Guards, former Men at Arms, Footman, Bowmen, Bounty Hunters, Clan Warrior, Household Warrior etc).
-most of them start with few levels
-early levels give more perks and higher rolls vs late that offer no perks and lower rolls
or
-leveling up to 11 is much faster
-Recruits are few. Number is low and refreshing period is rather big. Especially for villages. Now cities are main hub for recruits.
-there is more events to get free recruits, especially after battle
-Cost of recruits is low to free, so no problem replacing losses
-cost of weapons re-balanced with bandits carrying their own version of gear that is lower quality for the shop equivalent(both for weapons and armors), mostly affecting fatigue to armor/dmg ratio
-pay is much more rewarding as a worth of treasures, some of the contracts offer additional bonus pay for head(like caravan escort contract)
-re balance armors and weapons around fatigue effectiveness
-cost of the items is lower, some have cost at zero(basic tier items like stick)
-so you earn more cash from contracts compared to less cash from selling loot(but not treasures)
-reduce spawn rate for wandering parties and change AI behavior so its less suicidal
You earn more cash from contracts so you can wander and explore map or check settlements but combat matter more you can clear some area from enemy presence and be forced to move to some other infested area but the one you leave behind will be safer for longer.
Other minor changes.
Any thoughts?

 

[oneself]

Faster level ups and more gold/less expensive items/recruits should do it.

 

[Kayerts]

Guys so how we can stop this game being grind and turn it into fun to play take risk and be rewarded roguelike? [..]

Good ideas.

Decreasing easy contract pay, significantly increasing medium-hard contract pay, and increasing per-level wage costs of bros seem good. Overall effect would be to push higher level parties to take hard challenges and avoid grind, with rewards that (in conjunction with your other options) make losses more tolerable.

With regard to accelerating 1-11 progression, I have a few ideas. You can change how trainers work. The simplest mechanism would be to just increase the current +XP% they confer by a factor of 2-3 and possibly more for much lower-leveled bros, which might make them more reasonable.

A goofy solution that nevertheless might be good is having high-level enemies likely to incur losses (e.g., Warlords) provide trophies, which a trainer can convert into XP for one unit. It'll help you train up a replacement recruit, and if you managed to pull off a no-loss victory, it's a bonus veteran level. This also provides some badly-needed incentive to take hard fights.

I like the idea of adding some sort of unique, ambition-provided training item, like the existing battle standard. This item turns the unit who carries it into the company's armsmaster. All units with lower XP than him gain XP at a higher rate, according the difference. It could be a simple formula:
(armsmasterXP - max(studentXP, lowerBound)) / armsmasterXP * someConstant
It'd provide negligible benefits to the armsmaster's similarly-leveled peers but large benefits to green recruits, and still decent benefits to mid-level replacements-in-training. It's not particularly exploitable.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Doma]

 

[Kuattro]

If I have one criticism of the game, and something that has been bugging me since the new map generation was put in place, is the aversion to map loops. The main road has to be one single continuous line with a beginning and and end and the occasional fork that cannot loop back.

Take this:

Spoiler

Why do the people from Waidhof who want to go to the south not build a fucking road straight to Scharfenstein? Why wouldn't a visionary merchant, seeing how all his caravans get sacked doing that long fucking detour, just put some money down and get a couple of peasants to make that yellow road? It doesn't even cross forests nor swamps, there's not a mountain range on the way... gust grass.

Or this:

Spoiler

Why wouldn't the bull house want his southern settlement connected to their northern powerbase? Why would it want its resupply caravans to go through a rival house's territory (and a big fucking detour at that). It's not just convenience (and again, not just for me, at least the company can go off-road, but think of the caravans going north...), I'd say it's common sense that they would want that.

Anyway I realize it's probably got something to do with map generation code and it's not that easy to change, but as I said, I have been seeing this during the beta and when I saw that first image and how close those two settlement were without having a road between them, I just had to vent.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Yeah, it's great fun if you take a caravan mission to the nearest town and it takes you around the entire map for multiple days because the people living there are too stupid to build a 1km dirt road.

 

[Arulan]

Today was a tragic day...

A detour to the north lost too much time and crowns, and once again the Sons of Folly knew desperation. I traveled south across mountains just in time to reach some form of civilization. I needed a job, any job, and with that I sealed my fate. Half a day of escorting a caravan later and we were ambushed.

This wasn't just any group of brigands, but one largely made up of very well-equipped raiders and for the first time, a brigand leader, Ewald the Savage.

Hans, who I've considered the leader and front-man of my company faced him, and unfortunately did not survive the battle.

Rest in peace Hans.

 

[RK47]

Yeah, it's great fun if you take a caravan mission to the nearest town and it takes you around the entire map for multiple days because the people living there are too stupid to build a 1km dirt road.

theyd be stupid enough to pay u the full trip (full road mileage) for a courier job
pros n cons men

protip gear for mercs
high initiative: warhammer - strip armor first for rest of company
lower initiative: high damage weapons

 

[Ezeekiel]

That's not so bad, considering

Yeah, it's great fun if you take a caravan mission to the nearest town and it takes you around the entire map for multiple days because the people living there are too stupid to build a 1km dirt road.

theyd be stupid enough to pay u the full trip (full road mileage) for a courier job
pros n cons men

protip gear for mercs
high initiative: warhammer - strip armor first for rest of company
lower initiative: high damage weapons

What is this "high initiative" you speak of? Real men always move after their enemies to make things more fair :D