Kenshi - open-ended sandbox RPG set in a desert world

[DarkUnderlord]

Finally got this the other day after playing Endzone: World Apart made me want to play an RTS city builder.

So far the experience is to continually get beaten. I've obviously gone out too early to start a settlement but I thought hey, get some walls up and gates and crossbows and that should hold off the hungry raiders, right (also, I thought this was that great game everyone said you could play anyway you like)? Only to be attacked by progressively tougher bandits. It seems every new technology I unlock and build, only attracts tougher parties of bandits. Like literally facing only starving bandits but the minute those walls go up? Desert raiders. Literally less than five minutes after the wind turbine went up, Dragon Ninja somethings which I'd never seen before. It's happened enough that it's obviously a game trigger.

It's kind of killed it for me. Because it means the only way to play is to wander around with a small squad, getting my head smashed in so my "toughness" increases, eventually beating small bandit groups, leveling up until a certain point, THEN starting a small outpost. Making sure I level up the characters before I do the next tech push. And meh. I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

Oh, and no warning alarm like "Raiders are in the village!"? I've lost count of the number of times I've literally scrolled back after some trading only to find my gate torn apart, bandits running through my little outpost, and every character that was left in town KO'd. It's literally all over in seconds unless you're scrolling around the map like a mad man looking for the next group of bandits, or triggering latent OCD by constantly flicking back and watching the gate.

And no gate mechanic. Gates seem to either be open or closed. As yet no control to have someone open the gate and let friendlies through - it has to be done manually. Which is odd for a game where my guys are almost too keen to run off on their own to perform a task.

Loading times are too long too. Just scrolling around the map or moving between groups of people in different places (some off trading while the rest stay home) triggers unnecessarily long loading times which just makes keeping an eye on base even more of a pain in the ass.

I can't see how I'd "be a caravan trader", or anything else, without getting ganked constantly or doing anything else other than basically targeting the combat mechanic and focusing on that at all times. Step 1: Run guy back and forth until athletics is high enough he can out-run all groups. Step 2: Bash dummy. Step 3: Get head bashed in until you skill-up. Rinse and repeat. Ugh.

 

[Abu Antar]

Git Gud.

 

[agris]

I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

There may be mods that turn it into what you want (MadMaxHellfire is one of our resident Kenshi experts I believe), but I don't think you're going to enjoy it out of the box if this is your goal.

I found the base building stuff pretty uninteresting and never engaged with it, the game is better viewed as a single player MMO from the late 90s - without a real quest system.

 

[Abu Antar]

DarkUnderlord Had you read this thread, you would understand that what you got is exactly what people have described the game to be in this thread. I never once got the impression that this is in any way a city builder. On the contrary, most tales have described the hardships of trying to survive and build up your character and crew to be able to survive in the harsh world of this game. Many have described what and how they strengthened them. There different playstyles, but it's just not a city builder. Too bad you don't like it, but what you want was never the selling point of Kenshi, as far as I know.

 

[Galdred]

Finally got this the other day after playing Endzone: World Apart made me want to play an RTS city builder.

So far the experience is to continually get beaten. I've obviously gone out too early to start a settlement but I thought hey, get some walls up and gates and crossbows and that should hold off the hungry raiders, right (also, I thought this was that great game everyone said you could play anyway you like)? Only to be attacked by progressively tougher bandits. It seems every new technology I unlock and build, only attracts tougher parties of bandits. Like literally facing only starving bandits but the minute those walls go up? Desert raiders. Literally less than five minutes after the wind turbine went up, Dragon Ninja somethings which I'd never seen before. It's happened enough that it's obviously a game trigger.

It's kind of killed it for me. Because it means the only way to play is to wander around with a small squad, getting my head smashed in so my "toughness" increases, eventually beating small bandit groups, leveling up until a certain point, THEN starting a small outpost. Making sure I level up the characters before I do the next tech push. And meh. I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

Oh, and no warning alarm like "Raiders are in the village!"? I've lost count of the number of times I've literally scrolled back after some trading only to find my gate torn apart, bandits running through my little outpost, and every character that was left in town KO'd. It's literally all over in seconds unless you're scrolling around the map like a mad man looking for the next group of bandits, or triggering latent OCD by constantly flicking back and watching the gate.

And no gate mechanic. Gates seem to either be open or closed. As yet no control to have someone open the gate and let friendlies through - it has to be done manually. Which is odd for a game where my guys are almost too keen to run off on their own to perform a task.

Loading times are too long too. Just scrolling around the map or moving between groups of people in different places (some off trading while the rest stay home) triggers unnecessarily long loading times which just makes keeping an eye on base even more of a pain in the ass.

I can't see how I'd "be a caravan trader", or anything else, without getting ganked constantly or doing anything else other than basically targeting the combat mechanic and focusing on that at all times. Step 1: Run guy back and forth until athletics is high enough he can out-run all groups. Step 2: Bash dummy. Step 3: Get head bashed in until you skill-up. Rinse and repeat. Ugh.

I settled with 10-12 guys in an area similar to yours (between holy nation preachers, black dragon ninjas, and dust bandits).
I was able to handle 20 dust bandits at this stage. I didn't do anything special to train them. Just roam the map and engage camps of dust bandits, or mine ore near the Shek city (Squin), and kill the approaching bandits, and retreat to guards when badly outmached.
The first raid of black dragon ninja was tough. I barely survived and took back my food (and stripped them of their weapons) but I got my walls up after that.
There are areas that are a bit less contested I think (the swamp also occasionally brings blood spiders which can be a pain to handle).

Over time, I build 3 sets of gates+2 secondary walled off areas: The first version of the city only extended through the inner wall.
I then expanded to the current walls (except for the gatehouse in front of the first gate).
The watch towers came last.
Many recommend against having several gates : if all are closed, it does indeed fuck up the AI which then will target one wall sections, and they are a pain to repair (and protect).
But, I did it so that I can close the second if the first one falls, then the third.
It also makes it much easier to control the flow of opponents:

I let the first gate open so that 1/3rd of the opponents enter, then I kill them in melee while the other 23rd bash the gate, then retreat to the second gate when the first one falls.
For early warning, stationing a skeleton on the wall with a harpoon tower is usually enough. He will engage any approaching enemy and turn red. The problem is that it does this a bit too frequently.
Most small raids can be handled without paying much attention anyway, and I usually let the gate open so that my workers get some melee training.
I mostly close them for "announced raids" (like the ones from the black dragon ninjas, and the large dust bandit parties).

The AI will most of the time follow the red roads on the map, so it can help position sentries.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

There may be mods that turn it into what you want (MadMaxHellfire is one of our resident Kenshi experts I believe), but I don't think you're going to enjoy it out of the box if this is your goal.

I found the base building stuff pretty uninteresting and never engaged with it, the game is better viewed as a single player MMO from the late 90s - without a real quest system.

"killbox". you build the entrance of your base as an inward corridor, turrets only on one side or they'll shoot each other because kenshi has been coded by baboons. and even then they'll friendly fire they faces off anyway. don't put obstacles to make it longer à-la rimworld because they block line of sight of turrets and the baboons are back at doing their magic. just a mildly long corridor to your base. sometimes sieging forces won't be flagged as enemy before actually reaching your gate, so be ready to shoot first. whoever hits first hits twice.
vanilla gates are made of wet paper, so in harder zones your gates are going to go down just by wrongly staring at them. there's nothing you can do about it.

this is just medieval level engineering tailored around kenshi's shortcomings.

I never once got the impression that this is in any way a city builder. On the contrary, most tales have described the hardships of trying to survive and build up your character and crew to be able to survive in the harsh world of this game. Many have described what and how they strengthened them. There different playstyles, but it's just not a city builder.

suck it up, kenshi's endgame is city building.

 

[Galdred]

Kenshi is a castle owner RPG and not a straight city builder (single player Shadowbane kind of works).

Actually, not hitting their friends is a skill the shooters learn through hitting their friends, no?

I just put the trainees on crossbows until they can be trusted not to mutilate their friends with a harpoon (but I shoot in melee a lot).

There are several mods that make walls and gates harder to destroy. Given how lenient the sentries are at time, it would make sense using them.

 

[agris]

Kenshi is a castle owner RPG and not a straight city builder (single player Shadowbane kind of works).

That's exactly what I was thinking of, with a dash of pre-Velious EQ in there as well.

 

[Zanzoken]

So far the experience is to continually get beaten. I've obviously gone out too early to start a settlement but I thought hey, get some walls up and gates and crossbows and that should hold off the hungry raiders, right (also, I thought this was that great game everyone said you could play anyway you like)? Only to be attacked by progressively tougher bandits. It seems every new technology I unlock and build, only attracts tougher parties of bandits. Like literally facing only starving bandits but the minute those walls go up? Desert raiders. Literally less than five minutes after the wind turbine went up, Dragon Ninja somethings which I'd never seen before. It's happened enough that it's obviously a game trigger.

It's kind of killed it for me. Because it means the only way to play is to wander around with a small squad, getting my head smashed in so my "toughness" increases, eventually beating small bandit groups, leveling up until a certain point, THEN starting a small outpost. Making sure I level up the characters before I do the next tech push. And meh. I want to build a city that's capable of defending itself without stupid tricks, like avoiding tech until all my guys are leveled up to a certain point, or removing the gates and putting the food barrel in a small house at the end of a turreted wall maze.

The game is quite upfront that its world is intended to be harsh, brutal, and inhabited by all manner of ruthless killers. Meanwhile, your character begins with almost no skills, money, or gear. What makes you think you should be able to just go put down stakes somewhere out in the wilderness, and everything go fine? The weak getting raped and pillaged by the strong is part and parcel. You seem to recognize this, but are also in denial of it.

Kenshi is actually a pretty easy game, but you still have to learn how to play, and take your bumps before you get to start doing cool adventurer shit.

 

[polo]

Its not hard, its just grindy.

 

[mondblut]

Just script your peeps to carry shit overloaded overnight, and you'll have a crack team of badass fighters come morning (unless someone dies of hunger in process). Inquire for details.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yeah, the game is shit.

I had Dragon Ninja dudes "ransacking" the town for about 2 days - which consisted of them: taking nothing, and doing nothing other than running back and forth between two houses in town while all but 1 of my squad were KO'd. They did this endlessly. Without even getting hungry. And even after a message came up saying something about the bandits being done with the place.

But they did that while a single one of my dudes shot at them with a mounted crossbow until they all died.

See, I realised you can "dismantle" the ramp that lead up to the crossbow, and the crossbow fired inwards (I thought they were limited to firing outside the town walls), so I dismantled the ramp after he ran up there and he was never touched, while taking out a band of about 20 ninjas with crossbow bolts. You can re-build the ramp so he can get down, but the thing is, you don't need to re-build the ramp. You place it to be built, and they can walk up and down the un-built ramp.

Anyway, harvested their ninja gear which was mostly better than what most of my guys had. Now I had a mining town with no farms, as I'd been trading for food. After the ninja attack, I had to go trade for some. Easy enough. Only this time, I didn't put any food in the "food barrel" or chest for people to grab, instead, I spread it evenly among the populace thinking it'd be easier to leg it this way without constantly losing food. Only to discover...

No bandits attacked for days. I'd been getting pretty regular raids up until this point, of ever increasing levels of bandits (even multiple groups at one time). And now, nothing. When bandits did finally start showing up again - it was all back to lowly starving bandits and hungry raiders (bandits I hadn't seen for quite some time). And all they would do is walk right on by my outpost. If one of my guys was close they'd chase him but they never bothered making a bee-line for the food barrel as they'd done on multiple occasions in the past.

I also saw no raiders that were any more advanced than low level starving bandits. At worst, I had some people come round and demand tribute (came back after I'd given them stuff before), which resulted in me saying "take what you're owed" and they... turned around and walked off because I had no food in any containers.

Raiding problem solved!

But I went one further, thinking I'd surely get attacked at some point (it's still my first game): I removed gates. Completely. And replaced them with walls. As in, I had no way in and no way out. I had a couple of "runners" that'd leg it between a few different walled off areas (individually walled in stone, iron and copper mines) but all they needed to do was: access resource chests inside the walls (which they could do from outside of the walls), go trade for food, come back and distribute the food. Nobody needed to go through any walls.

My mistake was when I went one step further and walled off my main town and built a farm. I had a trader come and did pretty well out of it, ditching about 100 Building Materials and Iron Plates that had been earmarked for the Pack Bull. He left and literally SECONDS later, I notice... a band of hungry bandits attacking one of my guys outside the wall. No dramas I thought, only this time, I noticed a large group was actually attacking inside my iron mine and THE WALLS HAD EXPLODED. They had not been attacked. The group was not there while the caravan was there (I even re-loaded and checked), these bandits literally APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE and sections of my walls MAGICALLY EXPLODED at the same time just so they could get in.

tl;dr: The game has shit AI. I don't mind bandits visiting, I don't mind bandits attacking my walls. I don't even mind a tough group of bandits, laying siege to my town, eventually getting in and stealing all my shit. But I do mind gamey shit like: bandits only going for food. Extra food triggering extra bandits. It seems the more food in barrels the more bandits you trigger. The more advanced the food is, the more advanced the raiders. And MAGIC EXPLODING WALLS because the game can't figure out shit and needs to keep you "on your toes".

That's all Kenshi is. Endless streams of bandits just to "keep you on your toes". I'm sure I'll figure out what triggered the MAGIC WALL EXPLOSIONS and simply undo it, and go back to bandits being morons, but eh.

 

[curry]

It seems every new technology I unlock and build, only attracts tougher parties of bandits. Like literally facing only starving bandits but the minute those walls go up? Desert raiders. Literally less than five minutes after the wind turbine went up, Dragon Ninja somethings which I'd never seen before. It's happened enough that it's obviously a game trigger.

I can tell you for a fact that this is not the case. Raids trigger if you have an outpost close enough to a location owned by a faction that has a triggerable raid, in a zone that's not in that faction's no-go zone list, and if their unique NPCs that are required for raids are alive. The closer you are, the more likely it is for the raid to trigger. The Border Zone is not an ideal place for an outpost because there are several factions that can attack you. Both Dust Bandits and Black Dragon Ninjas have their HQs just east of The Hub.

 

[curry]

Skeletons are very rare. Unless you abuse import, you can reasonably expect 5-7 all over the world, discounting the uniques. There are only a few specific bars you can encounter them at, and no potential slave recruits.

Check the Deadlands.

There are no random recruits at Black Desert City, only Sadneil. The only bars random skeletons might show up appear to be Crab town, Shark, Mourn and The Hub, plus a few town overrides.

I suppose you could kidnap Black Desert City bar patrons and try recruiting them via slavery, as they are the only generic skeletons with stats below 25.

Living World increases the chance of Skeleton recruits appearing in appropriate locations. LW is a great mod for many reasons, I'd recommend getting it.

 

[Galdred]

I don't think the raiders care for the amount of resources you have:
I endured one of my toughest Black Dragon Raid right at the beginning, but now that my cooks are idle because my foodstores are all filled up, I still have raids with similar numbers. I'll have to "turn away" the prayer day guys next time to ramp it up.
However, if a group gets bugged (or maybe annihilated before reaching your place), its faction may not send another one.

Walling your city entirely will cause the AI to do weird things, and maybe cheat indeed. That is one of the reasons to avoid doing it.
The game is easy to exploit indeed, which I guess it shares with the earlier MMOs (like UO and its endlessely training bots).
I think it is a great "base building RPG", but I don't think it would work well as a city builder, because of the UI, pathfinding issues (but the whole tower defense genre is built around pathfinding issues, though...), and the optimal strategy that may not be super interesting.

Actually, my funniest moments were trying to defend my base from a raid (or escaped spider bot prisoner!) while my A team was away exploring.

Your base also serves as adventuring support:
- it generates money to outfit your adventuring party (I get as much by selling crafted armors and clothes than by raiding vaults. Selling raiders' loot now has become insignificant)
- craft armors and ammo for your adventuring party (but weapons are another issue, as what you can find and buy will usually be better than what you can produce at home).
- Not care much about food anymore: it was a pain to find enough food for my party of 8 Sheks + 2 humans before. Now, with 4 farmers and 2 cooks, I can get supplied for weeks when I get to my base.

I like building forward bases with only a few walls, a small wind generator, a small building (if it is in a region with harmful environment), a few proper beds, and turrets to make exploring easier.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

one day, if i ever play kenshi again before kenshi 2 hits, i want to fully commit to building a full, complete, entrenched city on fish island. i already tried it but i got bored before completing it, way too much micro to fend off the endless stream of trouts.

 

[curry]

one day, if i ever play kenshi again before kenshi 2 hits, i want to fully commit to building a full, complete, entrenched city on fish island. i already tried it but i got bored before completing it, way too much micro to fend off the endless stream of trouts.

What do you mean? Fishmen disappear if you kill their leader

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

1) it's not like it's a walk in the park entering their city
2) and then what's the point in colonizing fish island if it's not -fish- island anymore?

 

[ItsChon]

Games without a clear goal are really tough for me to enjoy, hence my lack of enjoyment with Kenshi. The only reason I've enjoyed Minecraft for years is due to Multiplayer.

 

[Delterius]

1) it's not like it's a walk in the park entering their city
2) and then what's the point in colonizing fish island if it's not -fish- island anymore?

Well the leader ain't in the city.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Jesus H Christ Mother of God. I swear to His Holiness I've slaughtered at least 200 "hungry bandits". There are so many groups of Hungry Bandits around that the only thing preventing them from cannibalism must be their astute religious beliefs. A group will arrive, usually of around 15 to 20. And before I've even had a chance to finish slaughtering them, the next group rocks up. Then another...

It's a fucking bad joke. I also realise I've built my first city too big so my guys are constantly running to Crossbows. I think it's time to move and build a smaller, tighter town. The game is more Tower Defense than Action-RPG / RTS. Which isn't a bad thing, as I enjoy TD, but this is getting silly from a game lore point of view. I mean I am literally massacring hundreds. There are more random roaming hungry bandits than there are people living in towns. Like Jesus Christ, get together and start a community FFS and stop throwing yourselves against my Crossbow bolts.

I was also wrong before, my walls didn't MAGICALLY explode, they were actually taken down - just very quickly when the bandits decide to attack them and because of the shit poor terribad interface that doesn't warn you, bandits are hard to notice. You literally have to add "Manning a Crossbow" as a job and wait for your guys to run as your best indicator. But as always, a redesign of the town solved my wall problem. Gates are important because they become targets. Without gates, they'll attack anywhere which is hard to manage in the area I've tried to claim. I think I'll pack-up and head out somewhere else and see how I go, which isn't bad for a first time game.

Mind you've also figured out that the game auto-saves right before a bandit attack. This is either a coincidence or deliberate. Honestly bandit attacks occur so often it's hard to tell.

But Jesus H Christ on a Fork, I'm getting tired of playing "Hunt the Crippled Bandit". I'll slaughter a few good groups, but my guys will stay on the Crossbows, ready to strike, but miles away from being able to hit anyone. I'm scanning around the horizon, thinking the next group is coming in but no, some fucker whose arms I've cut off and legs are missing, is crawling across the landscape. It's great that my guys are so attuned to bandits they can detect cripples but FFS give me an indication as to where in the ever loving fuck they are. I am literally triangulating multiple Crossbows to locate them - as they'll always point mostly directly at the crippled bandit.

But by the time I've scanned the map along the Crossbow path and sent a runner out to kill them, the next group is there. FFS. Do these fuckers ever get the idea that everyone who comes to town dies?

Also I need to look into cannibalism as clearly hungry bandits are an easy source of food. If only I can figure out to how to harvest them, it'd save some trading coin.

 

[mondblut]

Jesus H Christ Mother of God. I swear to His Holiness I've slaughtered at least 200 "hungry bandits". There are so many groups of Hungry Bandits around that the only thing preventing them from cannibalism must be their astute religious beliefs. A group will arrive, usually of around 15 to 20. And before I've even had a chance to finish slaughtering them, the next group rocks up. Then another...

It's a fucking bad joke. I also realise I've built my first city too big so my guys are constantly running to Crossbows. I think it's time to move and build a smaller, tighter town. The game is more Tower Defense than Action-RPG / RTS. Which isn't a bad thing, as I enjoy TD, but this is getting silly from a game lore point of view. I mean I am literally massacring hundreds. There are more random roaming hungry bandits than there are people living in towns. Like Jesus Christ, get together and start a community FFS and stop throwing yourselves against my Crossbow bolts.

And that's not even Skinner's Roam, where a single wandering hungry bandit party is of that size.

 

[Zanzoken]

If you import save you can adjust the frequency of raids.

You can also increase bleeding damage so the crippled bandits will bleed out fast and die, but beware this will also affect your own troops.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

want to play an RTS city builder.

Yeah, the game is shit.

Also I need to look into cannibalism

Classic Kenshi.

 

[Galdred]

For crossbows, putting a few robots in permanent sentry duty works rather well. Other guys would starve because crossbow duties apparently is more important than eating.

You can find a few fixed companion skeletons, but they are hard to get.
I play with living world mod on, so I could find a few in Black Desert City(you need good acid protection to go there) and the swamp.

If you get some, your dogs will feed off bandit limbs(wall mounted bolt weapons will occasionally sever them, especially after you get harpoons). Having a large base at least train your people in Athletics. It is not so bad.
Bandits will usually target the walls if they cannot find another way inside, or if they have 2 gates to pass. That's why I only close at most one at the same time.
The first one is mostly there so that my guys go man the turrets as soon as it is attacked (because no one cares about warning other about incoming bandits apparently). It goes down in every attack, but most attackers get murdered before reaching the second one.

You can also station your melee in front of the gate, Game of Thrones style. They are sturdier than the gate, so that should give plenty of time for the wall crossbow to solve the problem. Friendly fire can be deadly, though, especially with harpoons (so always train them with wall mounted crossbows until they are good at precision shooting if you don't want them to make your melee group armless).

Btw, is there a way to know beforehand which wall section will be eligible for receiving mounted crossbows/harpoons?
Apparently, the game doesn't like them to be too angled and sloppy, but it is a pain to redo whole wall sections afterwards so that they can have fixed weapons.