Fluent plays Kenshi

[Deleted Member 16721]

Thats crazy

Morrowind was like 5 square miles

It is crazy. And it's a *gorgeous* map. Full of variety, tons of biomes, each with unique challenges (acid rain in The Deadlands and Iron Valleys, sandstorms in the Skimsands, etc.), expertly crafted map with nooks and crannies and paths galore, with excellent pathfinding. A cool feature is that you can open the global map, click on a location far away and your team will actually find an excellent route there, one that may have been harder to manually find. Just so many little details like that make it an excellent game. You can find lost ruins full of loot, lost armories, treasure maps that lead you to new locations on your map, trading outposts, new recruits at bars who may add some much needed punch or skill to your team (Field Medics, Engineers, Laborers, etc..) If you feel the land is too empty you can actually change a setting to increase the enemy nests amount and multiply it. Default is 1, I set it to 1.2 and am wondering if I should go higher, but it would be very dangerous to do so. Those Skimmers in the desert, I must have encountered 15 of them and they were rough, targeting my legs so I was limping all around. One of them took off an arm of one of my powerful fighters, that's the second limb I lost so now I have to find a robotics shop and get a robotic implant for each of them. But yeah, the map is huge, gorgeous, full of detail, danger, challenge, you can build an outpost anywhere you like but beware, you will be tested by doing so with whatever faction lands you build on. And so much more. It has actually overtaken Kingmaker for me as GOTY 2018, just because it's so unique and I've never seen anything like it before. Buy it luj, and let me know what you think after you've played about 8 hours. It starts slow and has a steep learning curve but stick with it, you'll love it.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

The city of Heng by sunrise. Large city for the United Cities faction. Some weird glowing light that moves over on the right up, down back and forth, no clue what it is.

The city of Heng by moonlight. Huge city under United Cities control in the east. The brown dust flaring up are sandstorms that come and go.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

To add on to my review and impressions a bit, I'll tell about my trip through the Skimsands to Heng, the city you see in the screenshots. First, I was going to explore the Iron Valleys ruins, until I saw it was acid raining there, had some "evil tower" surrounded by security spiders (robotic spiders that are hard to kill), so I passed on that. I went north and I had to cross a Holy Nation checkpoint, and I wasn't sure if my team which includes both Shek and Hivers (different races in the game, hated by the HN) would be allowed to pass. We rush through and a guard says to keep my "beasts" in line and nothing bad will happen, great. So now I see a *vast* desert between our group and where I'm headed for - a United Cities city called Heng. I heard the UC has a lot of coin, goods and luxury things there, so I want to see what I can bring back to my house in a Shek town named Squin. So the journey starts okay, I spot a group of "Manhunters" in the distance, humans who apparently hunt men. I avoid them, don't want to be seen. Then I start seeing skirmishes far to the south and I'm wondering what it could be that is fighting there. I find out soon enough, people are fighting Skimmers, giant insectoids that roam the desert, sometimes in packs. We head farther east and encounter a few, kill them, but they're tough. Now a few in my group are limping, apparently these insects target the opponents legs first to try and gain an advantage. No problem, to make some members of my team stronger I have them carry the injured through the desert with us. We lose no speed and continue.

More Skimmers come, then another, then another. Before long we and a band of ragged recruits we met in the desert who happened to be in the same area are almost overwhelmed by Skimmers, sneaking in from all angles. We slaughter more but Griffin, a former Holy Nation Sentinel, loses an arm in the fray. He'll eventually need a robotic replacement, hopefully one we can find in Heng or somewhere in United Cities territory (our guy Stubs Mumoso needs one, too.) So we meet a traveler from the ragged band of mercs and hire him aboard, he says he can take care of himself, great, we need the help. However now, we have to carry almost half our team through the desert, and the ones doing the carrying are also injured. So we're at a crawl, no outpost in sight except for some strange Tengu Tower. We get there seeking refuge and are told it's a United Cities military outpost, leave at once and that will be our only warning. Okay, we get it, time to move out as hurt as we are. We continue east through vast stretches of desert fighting the occasional Skimmer (they sometimes leap from under the sand without warning) and we finally, after a long haul cross the border to Heng territory. It's a snowy mountain region - I'm hoping at this point we don't encounter some yeti or who knows what from the mountains. Finally, after a shorter hike we make it to the city on top of the mountain, Heng, and quickly get all our wounded in beds at the inn, that happened to have enough for all of us but 2 to sleep for the night and regain strength. In the morning we'll search the city and see what we can find, for now we rest.

Back home production is going good, our workers are mining copper and keeping income flowing in while other workers are researching new tech and making bread which is turned into meatwraps with raw meat, a good, hearty food source. It will be a long trek back to Squin but our wanderers will explore the UC territory for awhile until it's time to make a haul back to Squin or some other forgotten realm. I'm hoping to bring back things to sell and trade in Squin, if we're strong enough to loot an ancient ruin or outpost in Heng territory. I have to buy a few maps from the Traveler's Guild to see if there's anything close we can check out.

These are the types of adventures you find in Kenshi, and not one bit of it was scripted or told as some quest or anything like that. Just dynamic, emergent gameplay. Quite the incline, wouldn't you say?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

More incline screenshots for those interested.

Griffin, an ex-Holy Nation Sentinel showing off his new robotic left arm.

Warrior Stubs Mumoso showing off his robotic arm replacement as well. Takes expensive skeleton repair kits to fix if it gets injured though, and we could only afford the standard models, not the super expensive High Grade ones.

Nope, it's not the Skimsands, it's the Great Desert. Even bigger and more unyielding than the Skimsands.

My warrior caravan moving through the Great Desert. Gotta love Charlie the bull hauling all our goods for us.

These guys are part of the Manhunters faction, and decided to test their luck and try to capture us to sell to slavers. Let's see what happened...

Looks like the Manhunters won't be hunting anymore, eh?

Approaching a large canyon area known as Bask at the edge of the Great Desert.

Our group's in the middle, and can you see the skirmish to the right? United Cities Samurais vs. a cannibal tribe. You can't make this stuff up, man.

A ravaged ruin in the canyon Bask area.

Bask stretches on for miles, looks to be a lot of interesting nooks and crannies to find ruins and who knows what else amongst the mountains and valleys.

And again, big desert is big. Or should I say Great Desert is Great.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I roll 17 deep now sun, let them cannibals come at me.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

More incline from my Kenshi playthrough:

Told you Bask was a large area. This is a view from a mountaintop near a civilized town in the region, as seen below. This is cannibal territory, already had a battle with a gang of "Meat Lord Tribe" cannibals. It got ugly fast but they were no match for my warrior caravan.

Here's Drin, a lone town outpost by the United Cities in the Bask area. Not much to see here but a good place to stock up as I go to hunt bounties in the Great Desert (some ruthless criminals seem to be in that area according to the available bounties.)

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

So now that my thread is back, I want to encourage others who try Kenshi out to post screenshots and talk about their playthroughs. We can chat as newcomers to the game instead of the high-level/spoilerish talk in the Kenshi megathread. Thank you to staff for restoring my little nook here, I greatly appreciate it.

More Kenshi to come!

 

[oldmanpaco]

How many Kenshi threads do we really need? Infinitron Crispy merge this shit!

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

So I noticed some cool things in my last session. I was walking in the Great Desert, a particular barren area, looking for bounties or things to kill. I noticed in the wee distance a pair of wind generators running (no screenshots available yet, sorry) and thought, "hmm, that looks suspicious." So I go to the area and all of a sudden I'm getting hit by turrets from a small barracks in the middle of nowhere. We run and bash the door down to find a few enemies, including a named one I assume has a bounty on his head (I don't currently have a bounty that says he has one, but he has a special name, so...). Also, he had a whopping 15,000 cats on him (catans are the currency) and another person with him had a 6k bounty on his head as well. Not to mention the barracks was filled with loot. Armor plating, chainmail plates, a bunch of food, expensive sake and grog and more. Nice little find and it was given away by those 2 wind generators you could see from about a mile away, but they looked small. Game has a vast view distance on max settings which is one of the nice things of the older engine.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Interview with the developer coming soon to this thread.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

While waiting for the developer, Chris Hunt of Lofi Games, to get back to me with my interview answers, here's a few more screenshots.

This is the island/world map. The areas marked are cities, and they are marked there because I discovered or purchased maps for those areas. Presumably there are even more that I don't have maps for yet.

Bottom left of the map, zoomed out. Each area is a biome, the house looking things are cities.

Top left, northwest section of the map.

Northeast section of the map.

Southeast direction, more biomes.

Now, here is a look zoomed in to see just some of the points of interest you can find on the map itself.

Zoomed in mostly on the Iron Valleys biome, which features deadly acid rain. The ruins are generally areas to find good loot, but beware of monsters. Same for outposts, although some may be occupied by actual residents beyond enemy factions and may not be deserted. Other spots like Okran's Shield, Narko's Trap, etc., are towns or settlements to explore, if the given faction, in this case the Holy Nation, doesn't hate you.

This is what I've discovered in the Border Zone. Just showing a full city/town of Squin in the bottom left, a few bases and settlements and a Tech Hunter waystation. Holy Nation patrols north of this area, near Stack. That's their territory up there.

A little sunrise over the Shem biome, which off to the right is a hilly desert area with water oasis spots. Next door to The Swamp.

And finally, two moons are better than one. I forget where this was taken, might be deeper in Shem. Yeah, I think it's Shem.

So the map is very diverse and interesting to explore. I'll post back again when the dev answers my interview questions. Cheers!

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

No screenshots this time, but some more impressions for those who haven't played yet or heard much about the game.

Leveling up is really quite quick. If you recruit some newbies to your squad who are less skilled than your other members, just get into some fights (and trust me, there'll be plenty) and quickly your new characters skills will go up with experience. Also, don't be afraid to use mods on your first run. I'm running with about 20 mods and the Steam Workshop has a lot of great stuff to enhance immersion and what's in the game. I don't go for cheats or severe overhauls, but there are good mods like Reactive World which just compliment the base game so well. For example, in that mod, if you defeat the Dust King, aka the boss of the Dust Bandits, the remaining bandits will split into rival factions vying for power among themselves. Cool additions like this just make what's there even better, and are fine for a first playthrough.

There are also mods that add smaller factions that add even more variety to the game. I can post my modlist if anyone is interested.

I've also found that building a base is completely optional, even when you're ready power-wise to build. You can accomplish a lot living in a longhouse in a city, and it's easier to get needed supplies for crafting. But, you won't make a profit on your work since in order to do that, you have to create your own crafting materials (steel bars, leather, fabrics, strawflour, etc..) But if you just want to make things and not worry about a profit and just breaking even, you can do that in a town, no base necessary.

Also beware if you make enemies with a faction. If that factions sees your simple miners and outside workers, they can attack on sight. If the enemy faction likes enslaving people, you may have your workers enslaved and taken away. And finally, don't underestimate the power of hiring mercenaries for a day or two. The help of 4 or 5 very strong fighters can make the difference even in something like taking over a city or enemy base, especially if the mercs are highly skilled. And if you need to move weaker characters like workers from one side of the map to the other, hire a merc team to watch their backs and they'll be safe the whole way (as long as you stay out of *really* high level areas.)

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

if u lvk l

if u love him so mcuh wy why not shove him up ur ass
>?????????????

LOL

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

It would be physically impossible to place a digital version of Kenshi up my ass, and even if it were possible it's still a preposterous idea.

 

[luj1]

One thing tho. I wish you could interact with more stuff.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

One thing tho. I wish you could interact with more stuff.

I'm with you man. Wish you could harvest cactus, pick up more items on the ground, etc.. However, there are plenty of items to interact with in the ruins/outposts/loot-laden areas of the game. You can pick up lots of stuff ranging from tools to gear to ancient books for your research benches, and also interact (pick up) items from houses you broke into or somewhere you're stealing from. But yeah, I noticed that at first, too, but after playing awhile it doesn't bother me much at all.

 

[Sacibengala]

Send nudes, don't waste our times with photos of the waste

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Another protip - When you get enough manpower, have your workers be bodyguarded by some of your team members. I made a separate squad of Squin Bodyguards that protect the workers, so even in the event some Slave Traders (who I'm hostile toward) show up, they'll have protection. Town law enforcement doesn't help you against enemy factions unless they are hostile with that faction, too. In this case the Shek Kingdom is indifferent to Slave Traders so they won't help me fight them. Very important tip to keep workers working and not enslaved.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Some more impressions and general tips.

1 - Self defense is *legal*. For some reason I was out wandering with my team of 7 and I saw my huge squad was being attacked back in Squin. I go back to see the Trader's Guild Caravan is fighting us. They must have tried to steal from one of us or loot somebody, so we fought back. Killed them all and looted all 3 of their pack beasts for HUGE profits. Ration packs galore, skeleton repair kits; the works. Guards did not intervene since it was an act of self defense against thievery.

2 - You can make a town your base. If you have a big enough squad to both guard your miners and the town itself from rascals who may be hostile against you, you can pretty much run the city. I'm so powerful now in Squin that any group that comes through and picks a fight will be dealt with, giving us bounties to turn into the Shek (we're at 32 relations with them, almost an ally at 50) and loot for us to sell. I have a small food, weapon and armor manufacturing going and again, as long as you can handle what comes by your workers, you're good to go.

It feels very satisfying to reach this level of strength in the game. I have a team of 21 guarding the town and even though the slave traders are hostile towards me, I can wipe them out every time (and the occasional Trader's Guild caravan who wants to steal from me.) It's not quite my own base but it's good enough for now until I find a permanent place to reside. It's satisfying and works well since you can send an additional team of 6 or 7 out to hunt, explore, collect bounties or generally just roam the lands without worrying about your base being decimated while you're gone.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Story time. Grab the popcorn.

Alright, so I have Squin pretty much locked down as my base, so I send a 7 person party out to explore a bit. I think, why not check out Vain a bit, home of Hive Villages and the Hivers race. So I'm exploring a bit and see a Beak Thing, a giant-necked beast with a beak. We attack, kill it, but 2 more were with it down the stream and come attack us. Uh-oh. Everyone goes down in this battle, Beak Things are very tough, especially Adult versions. We killed two and one was left and started eating one of our companions alive! So in a heroic effort, Cavag, a Holy Nation heretic who left the Nation is disgrace, on the ground crawling strikes the killing blow on the giant beast. We quickly kill them and harvest the meat to make sure they're dead, but we're in a very rough spot. We have a skeleton who can't be repaired and can barely move and 6 others in severe distress. So I decide to send out a rescue party.

The Hive area isn't far from Squin, so I grab my 2 pack animals, Charlie and Nancy, load them up with repair kits and food and grab 4 other members of the Squin Guard to form the rescue team. After awhile of anxiety (if more Beak Things came along my party would be eaten alive) our rescue squad makes it there. We start the process of hauling bodies and more Beak Things come. We fight them off but 2 of our rescue team go down! So now I have bodies everywhere that need to be evacuated and only a few able members. That's where Samsonar, my main Scorchlander character comes in in another heroic moment.

Even though we were being attacked by Gorillos on the way out (thankfully they don't eat you alive), Samsonar single-handedly gets out all of the downed party members, one by one, carrying them to safety in the Hive Village. Each time was risky, the Gorillos were in the area and Beak Things could still be around, each of which could take down Samsonar easily. But with his great speed and strength he managed to pull everyone to safety. Not without some loss of limb, though. Benjie lost a leg (already lost an arm earlier) and Melehet loses a leg, too. We have to settle for cheap Hive prosthetics which are far below good quality but all we can have for the moment. We send Toothpick the Skeleton to rest on the skeleton repair bench for 800 catans and our group is currently safely in the village healing up before we head back to Squin to regroup.

Whew, it was tense, crazy and exhausting, but we did it. Once we regroup in Squin I'll make a more formidable adventurer party to take out exploring while the Squin Guard continue to protect our operations in Squin. Fun stuff, and an example of a story you can't get from any other game out there.

 

[fantadomat]

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Someone requested nudes, this is the closest I could get. Her name is Oron and she's a Shek. Just look at dat booty and those horns.

And introducing my 2 newest companions - Sarah the Beak Thing and Speckles the Gorillo. Both pups, aren't they cute?

Someone ate dried meat and photobombed my screenshot. But yeah, with the Hiver Expansion mod you can add domesticated Beak Things and Gorillos to your group. When they grow up they should be pretty strong, with the Beak Thing having a sort of Cleave attack that attacks multiple enemies at once for great damage, and the Gorillo just being strong and fast.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

The game has a vast variety of biomes. This is Vain, the rainy jungle area where you'll encounter Hivers, aka bug people who lives in hives and are a major faction in the game. You'll also be fighting different strength versions of Gorillos and Beak Things, which range from troublesome to downright deadly.

Some more impressions - this game is brutal! In a good way. I'm 150 hours in and can barely survive in Vain or any biome which is a step out of my home town of Squin. One Elder Gorillo can put a few members of the party on the ground before defeating it, and a couple Adult Beak Things can cause even more damage. If you go to the swamp you may encounter Blood Spiders that will try to eat you alive and also pack a deadly punch, as well as different groups of swamp ninjas creeping around looking for people to beat and loot. If you head to the Border Zone you have Dust Bandits, which are pretty easy, but if you head north and aren't on great terms with the Holy Nation, you'll be in a lot of trouble if you meet a travelling group of Holy Paladins or Sentinels. So again, 150 hours in, still very hard to survive in the world in the different biomes with stronger enemies.

Granted, I did split up my group into a town guard and an exploration group, but the game is hard, man. And it takes a long time to gain that strength, but it's very satisfying to see the slow, Gothic-like growth of your team. It's also satisfying to craft your own armor and weapons for your team, or make that big purchase at the weapon store to greatly upgrade one of your strong character's attacking ability. I haven't even built a base yet after all those hours, just bought a home in Squin and work out of that. I'm not sure my team has the strength to build a base yet even with 35 or so total overall characters. Crazy. The game is massive.

Just some more impressions for anyone who hasn't played it yet. Be prepared to sink some hours into it if you play the default game. It's a lot of fun, though, even exploring and overcoming strong enemies and helping your injured members get back to town in one piece. Brilliante.

 

[Lacrymas]

Does this game have a main quest? Does it have an end?

 

[mfkndggrfll]

It looks like a garbage F2P MMO from 10 years ago without the multiplayer factor.