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

[Jedi Master Radek]

The game has a great combat system. It's a lot of fun to do battles. It's frustrating how close BB is to perfection, when it has some easy to solve issues keeping it down. Played original with free DLC and snow bros and I am definitely buying other DLCs when they go on sale.


- Each weapon, rather than to be just a front for stats, has it's unique advantages and disadvantages, like flairs ignoring shields or spears being able to create spearwall. I have been long thinking that this is how weapon system should work in RPGs and BB proves me right.
- Enemy variety. This game gets it. Rather than just having a bunch of level scaled HP sponges with different colour variations, BB has each enemy type behave differently on the battlefield. Orks rush the line, while undead raise after death and goblins throw nests. Battles usually are mechanically different depending on who you fight against.
- Writing is pretty decent. It manages well to evoke a feeling of being a part of a nihilistic band of mercenaries in a dark, low fantasy setting.
- AI is very good.
- I love morale mechanic. It feels great to see enemy hearts being broken by seeing their companions being owned. The moment when the morale reaches a tipping point and some opponents starts routing feels glorious.
- You can send dogs after running enemies. This is just too much fun.
- The visuals and music are very pleasant. Battle sounds deserve a special praise as they more than make up for a lack of animations in combat.
- BB gets small details right, like when an enemy that was engaging a crossbow unit in melee gets a morale break, he no longer causes unit to not be able to reload their crossbow
-The first 30 hours of a playtime are ecstatic. Only after this time some game problems are starting to become apparent.

- The main problem with the game is the lack of some kind of metagame systems that gives a purpose to grinding in middle/late game other than acquiring more power. In Mount and Blade you have kingdoms wars, participation in which makes you feel like you are a player in a dynamicly changing word. You choices mattered there.
- The game promotes using different weapons for different enemies, however the limited inventory space makes keeping backups weapon sets come with an opportunity cost of having less loot space. This is especially painful because the game already demands of you to carry spare shields.
- There is no quick switch weapon button, which makes having your first line use throw weapons on incoming enemies and then switch to melee be a pain to manage. There are so many games with a quick switch button in which I don't feel a need to switch weapons, but when I get one in which I want to quickly change weapons I don't get a quick switch button. Fate is a cruel mistress.
- You can't check the stats of brothers you are recruiting. That's bollocks.
- The game is said to be meant to be played on ironman, however the risk/ reward ratio in middle/ late game is at odds with that. You can lose easily an unit you were training for a few hours along with all its equipment. This is a big lose that can only be recouped by grinding. I guess that ironman is playable when you have a lot of metaknowldege, but at this point is it even possible to call it a recommended mode of play?
- What text adventures you get depends on background traits of you characters. This results in you feeling to have less control over them. You don't choose background traits for text adventures, but for combat. This feature may work well in ironman, but outside of it, it didn't really works.
- Even if you set up fast animations, enemies tend to move too slow. I want even more speedy speed of animations option.
- I got an ork invasion crisis and it ends in an anticlimactic way. You get ork invasion, you kill orcs bands then you get an information that a crisis has ended. You have no way of checking you progress during a crisis.
- I dislike how to get an explanation of how some mechanics works you need to check wiki. (example: hit chance formula) I believe that every mechanic should be explained in game.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It's interesting, I actually feel like Battle Brothers is much better at mid-late game than Warband. In Warband, once I get to the point where I can win battles, the game starts boring the crap out of me with its never ending sieges. In Battle Brothers, you can still hunt for cool equipment, deal with various crises, keep leveling up your bros. Is it perfect? Maybe not, but I find it a lot more engaging than Warband.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I just bought the switch version on preorder. If anyone has a switch, do it too if only to support the devs because they deserve it.

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[Takamori]

Started playing with Peasant Militia, I learned how to make even a massive piece of shit drunk fucktard fight. Its damn hard dealing with low quality soldiers but once you learn how to play around you can start zerging people with it.

 

[Serus]

Just finished greenskin crisis on expert ironman for the first time. Think I'll probably try to take on a second crisis with this save as I still haven't fully explored the map or tried any legendary locations.

Found a pretty sweet famed shield.

Spoiler

You call this "sweet" ?I call this "sweet" (from my current game):

By far the best famed item i found so far.

A propos my current game: the three fatsos became two fatsos and now there is only one fatso left. Already two have lost weight! Damn that event must fire often. Never count on additional health from this trait.

 

[Kaivokz]

Drew I forgot to mention buying nets from coastal cities; nets can help limit RNG in fights that are a little above your current power level (you can make reinforced nets with webnechkt web at taxidermists). Some specific use cases are unholds and brigand leaders before you have good shield bros. Once you have a good shield bro, he can tank 3-4 unholds with taunt and indom by himself or a brigand leader (or raider w/ dangerous weapon, like double grip spear or 2h) just by hitting shield wall, but before that throwing nets on some while you focus down the rest is a good strategy. (Iron lungs is a great trait on tanks or just having high fatigue; once m.def gets the roll down to 5% any more is useless in that situation—having more fatigue to indom or taunt is better.)

 

[Kaivokz]

You call this "sweet" ?I call this "sweet" (from my current game):

Hey, mine has 95 durability and most things already roll 5’s against him—I’ll take that trade :D

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

So one thing to ponder based on Battle Bros: the role of luck in eliteness. One thing I (and probably most of you) noticed based on BB, is that some bros just kill it way outside of what their stats would indicate. Some random bro whose stats/equipment are worse than many others will just destroy enemies and rack up a crazy kill count. That's just luck I guess, and over a looong period of time, it evens out I guess, but since in RL, a warrior would only be involved in a fraction of fights as in BB, that kind of luck could carry a person for a lifetime, and he would become a legendary warrior. Random thoughts from Porky.

 

[razvedchiki]

anyone played with peasant pike blocks?
what about the overhaul mod?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I guess that ironman is playable when you have a lot of metaknowldege, but at this point is it even possible to call it a recommended mode of play?

No, they just put it there to complete their bucket list or something, some people might play the game as a rogue-like though but early game is RNG fest, mid-game is fun and late game is boring so it doesn't really work.

- I got an ork invasion crisis and it ends in an anticlimactic way. You get ork invasion, you kill orcs bands then you get an information that a crisis has ended. You have no way of checking you progress during a crisis.

There is a vague report somewhere telling you who's side is winning and approximately how close you are from victory or defeat (is it even possible to lose?)

I agree with your pros/cons list, i'd add too many cities, i'd rather have less cities with more buildings, when you have a village with just a market, it's just sad. (Merchant boy will probably disagree, waiting for his butthurt to manifest)
Also, it's missing some basic kingdom management where you either can build a city or help a faction to build more buildings with some control over the ones you get.

Last but not least, the quest design is terribly done.
Having to put a contract on hold mid negotiation to check where the cities involved are and which buildings they have is a huge overlook on their part.
There should be a small map on the quest negotiation page showing the worldmap and the city position and which important building it has.
Also, having to come back to a city to get a reward is a pain, fuck "realism", it's even worse with the greenskin incasion where you get the contract to save a eastern city from the most western one ...
And of course, no encounter design.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Ironmode is absolutely playable. I completed Veteran/Ironmode, and now playing Expert/Ironmode after less than 100 hours in the game. I would say it actually is the recommended mode of play, because managing the RNG and dealing with the permadeath aspects is a big part of Battle Brothers. Without that, I don't think it's nearly as interesting to play, because with save/loads, you can take care of any challenge by simply playing until a favorable RNG outcome, while with it, you have to manage both good and bad RNG outcomes.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You know, most of us play without saving/loading but not in ironman, because once or twice in a run, it's nice to have a reload option and have a safety net in case of a game breaking bug.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I was playing yesterday, early Expert/Ironman, and my shitty low-level company was traveling along a road to some city, to look for contracts. Suddenly a bunch of Goblin Skirmishers/Poachers appear, which I know would wreck me in my current state. So I tried to run away from them along this road. On the road and through the woods, off to grandma's house we went, when suddenly, a different group of Goblin Wolf Riders appears in front. So I am stuck between a goblin rock and a hard place. I figure, during pause, to barrel into wolf riders because they are coming on fast, and I don't barrel into them, both groups will attack me at the same time. So I do, and then try to flee from the battle. Except the wolfriders spawn all around my group. So I have to sacrifice 2-3 guys just to slow them down enough for the rest to escape. Just barely I manage to escape with 6 of my best guys. Leaving the 2 gobbo groups behind, I run straight into a 9 bandit thug/raider group. They outnumber me by 2/3rds, some of them have metal armor, while my group is basically low level peasants at this point. This is on Ironman, right, so a loss is the end of the game. An epic battle ensues, and we somehow defeat them.

Stories like this I think are only possible on Ironman. Imagine if I could've just reloaded after the first goblin thing... A completely different experience. So...

 

[Darth Canoli]

I have the same kind of stories without ironman because i don't reload much, most runs, i don't reload at all.
Still, there is some run ending scenarios and trust me, when you played the game over and over and you finally found a good seed with the right bros, you want to hang on to it.

When traveling on the roads, you can just run away past a "friendly" group and either they're weak and you're off the hook because your pursuer picked them instead or they're strong and the goblins would have run away.
Or you can just attack them with your new found allies.

Also, different kind of foes will attack each other.

And never trust anyone telling you he never ran away from anything, either he's lying of save scumming, probably both.

 

[Infinitron]

Arthur Morgan returns:



http://battlebrothersgame.com/switch-release/

SWITCH RELEASE

The Nintendo Switch version of Battle Brothers has been released into the world! It’s available for purchase with a 15% discount in the Nintendo Store on your Switch.

You can also find it on the Nintendo Store on your PC, but those websites are slow to update and may still display the game as a pre-order item for a while. It’s playable right now, though!

Now you’re able to lead your own mercenary company through the perils of a gritty, low-power, medieval fantasy world even while traveling. You get to decide where to go, whom to hire or to fight from the comfort of a relaxing couch. And it is your choice what contracts to take and how to train and equip your men in a procedurally generated open world campaign whether you’re commuting or flying ten thousand feet in the air. You get to play with all the content and features of the PC version, and you’ll have access to all the DLC!

Enjoy!

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

That time you are escorting a caravan for 5 days for a massive payout, and on day 3 run into some ambush, without seeing who it was first, cause you were looking at pr0n. And it turns out to be several Orc Young and 2 Orc Berserkers. On Expert/Ironman. With your group still fairly low level on day 30. And you win the battle without losing a single man because the battle map has woods that funnel the orcs at your group 2 at a time.

 

[Serus]

The game has a great combat system. It's a lot of fun to do battles. It's frustrating how close BB is to perfection, when it has some easy to solve issues keeping it down. Played original with free DLC and snow bros and I am definitely buying other DLCs when they go on sale.

...
[some good points about the game being very good]
...

- The main problem with the game is the lack of some kind of metagame systems that gives a purpose to grinding in middle/late game other than acquiring more power. In Mount and Blade you have kingdoms wars, participation in which makes you feel like you are a player in a dynamicly changing word. You choices mattered there.
- The game promotes using different weapons for different enemies, however the limited inventory space makes keeping backups weapon sets come with an opportunity cost of having less loot space. This is especially painful because the game already demands of you to carry spare shields.
- There is no quick switch weapon button, which makes having your first line use throw weapons on incoming enemies and then switch to melee be a pain to manage. There are so many games with a quick switch button in which I don't feel a need to switch weapons, but when I get one in which I want to quickly change weapons I don't get a quick switch button. Fate is a cruel mistress.
- You can't check the stats of brothers you are recruiting. That's bollocks.
- The game is said to be meant to be played on ironman, however the risk/ reward ratio in middle/ late game is at odds with that. You can lose easily an unit you were training for a few hours along with all its equipment. This is a big lose that can only be recouped by grinding. I guess that ironman is playable when you have a lot of metaknowldege, but at this point is it even possible to call it a recommended mode of play?
- What text adventures you get depends on background traits of you characters. This results in you feeling to have less control over them. You don't choose background traits for text adventures, but for combat. This feature may work well in ironman, but outside of it, it didn't really works.
- Even if you set up fast animations, enemies tend to move too slow. I want even more speedy speed of animations option.
- I got an ork invasion crisis and it ends in an anticlimactic way. You get ork invasion, you kill orcs bands then you get an information that a crisis has ended. You have no way of checking you progress during a crisis.
- I dislike how to get an explanation of how some mechanics works you need to check wiki. (example: hit chance formula) I believe that every mechanic should be explained in game.

Good post, i agree with most of the positives but I want to comment on some of the negatives:
1. Backup weapons and space: Really this is a problem? Probably that's because it was too small without the dlc that adds the option to expand the inventory? It was never a problem for me because i played early without any dlc and now with all - in both cases inventory space was adequate.

2. Not sure about ironman and loosing a brother here and there. So what, You should have 15~20 of them. Bros are easy to get. Levelling from 1 do 11 doesn't take long later in game anyway. You do it by doing the same you would do otherwise - by playing. On the other hand loosing several brothers at once... that really sucks but does it really happen past early game if you don't screw up? In general, the game is less random the farther you are in game. Loosing bros is at the start is easy even without any fault on the player side due to rng. It becomes less and less so as you progress. Bros simply become sturdy enough to always be able to take some hits before dying. Which means that you should only very rarely loose brothers late game unless you screw something badly.
On the other hand I agree with on one thing: any ironman game with any level of difficulty to speak of ultimately requires some metagame knowledge. You can gain it by playing and dying, that's how roguelikes are meant to be played. BB has the advantage that loosing a bro (or even 1/2 company) doesn't end the run. However that comes from a (bad) roguelike* player so my perspective may be different than some/most of BB's players.
*classic ones

3. You can have an information about you progress during a crisis. You need to take corresponding goal for the company. Perhaps that was added in a dlc as well. However you are right that the crisis in general are very anticlimatic.


I think one problem with the game is that it still revolves around your company. The level scaling even if limited is only small part of the problem. The problem is that the world is really very static, not to mention small and empty-ish. There no other active parties. Like political powers that actively and constantly fight and scheme with one another (not a just a lame crisis). Like other mercenary parties that aren't just there to look nice and maybe fight one but can actively compete for work/money/fame/famed items/other with other companies. And so on, many possibilities. This game have a great tactical battles element, some good atmosphere and somewhat original premise but the world is mediocre.

On a side note, i wish BB had the end game score not half-assed like it is know but like it was in some Microprose games from the 80s and 90s. For example "Pirates" (one from the mid 80s). This way actually getting the highest score would be a goal by itself.

 

[Serus]

I have the same kind of stories without ironman because i don't reload much, most runs, i don't reload at all.
Still, there is some run ending scenarios and trust me, when you played the game over and over and you finally found a good seed with the right bros, you want to hang on to it.

When traveling on the roads, you can just run away past a "friendly" group and either they're weak and you're off the hook because your pursuer picked them instead or they're strong and the goblins would have run away.
Or you can just attack them with your new found allies.

Also, different kind of foes will attack each other.

And never trust anyone telling you he never ran away from anything, either he's lying of save scumming, probably both.

I think you really do not. Doesn't matter that you usually don't reload. You have in mind that you can and will if you are very unhappy with the result. It is the different mindset that count. I never understood it myself, thought it as strange until i started at "late" age playing roguelikes. It IS different, trust me, i was on both sides. It is not necessarily superior or better but is certainly different.

 

[Savecummer]

Stories like this I think are only possible on Ironman

Its a story about literally retarded suicide on ironman...

6 should outrun 9 overworld, and you also could retreat in combat, they arent vampires. But you just threw away a run because...? Epic but retarded fight? Why? Dont you have anything else to do?
Learned nothing, gained nothing, wasted own time.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I couldn't outrun them because I had 2 goblin parties behind me, and the road had mountains and woods around it. I could've tried running again from the bandits, but I guessed that I could take them (correctly as it turned out). Risk/reward decisions, can't run from every single fight.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Not a good first impression on switch port. Long loading times and already crashed twice in less than half an hour. Performance when zooming out is kinda shit too and there's a few QoL issues. This port needs badly some mods implemented into it like pause when sighting enemies(I don't understand why they didn't implement it on the base game tbh. Seems simple enough).

Overworld pathfinding seems fucked up in some places as well. Got stuck in the water a few times.

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[Jedi Master Radek]

You can have an information about you progress during a crisis. You need to take corresponding goal for the company. Perhaps that was added in a dlc as well. However you are right that the crisis in general are very anticlimatic.

If you had taken a goal before crisis started and haven't finished it before crisis ended it won't work. Also the idea that you need to use one mechanic in a very particular way to make other mechanic work doesn't ring as a solution for me.

I think one problem with the game is that it still revolves around your company. The level scaling even if limited is only small part of the problem. The problem is that the world is really very static, not to mention small and empty-ish. There no other active parties. Like political powers that actively and constantly fight and scheme with one another (not a just a lame crisis). Like other mercenary parties that aren't just there to look nice and maybe fight one but can actively compete for work/money/fame/famed items/other with other companies. And so on, many possibilities. This game have a great tactical battles element, some good atmosphere and somewhat original premise but the world is mediocre.

YES!

 

[Murk]

The combination of civil war, head hunters, bounty-hunts, etc. already has so many pieces for a more developed and involved "bounty hunt" type of mission. Imagine something between a two-part contract and a full on crisis, some kind of prolonged mini-campaign.

Like, what if you were contracted by a noble house to track down and kill a rival noble that goes through multiple contract-length scenarios that can have a few different resolutions. Perhaps the noble is protected by another noble house, and you have to fight your way to him. Perhaps the noble is in exile, and so you're on a tracking mission and have to deal with rival mercenary groups. Perhaps you install one of your own men (bastard, adventurous noble, etc.) and in doing so lose your bro but gain some benefits + hedge knight recruit.

Pieces are all there, just needs to be fleshed out and connected with some reactivity and branching.

Imagine the "hunt the king in the north oh wait he wants to team up to fight undead and how he's your bro" scenario but more developed, with more twists, and more reactivity.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Imagine the "hunt the king in the north oh wait he wants to team up to fight undead and how he's your bro" scenario but more developed, with more twists, and more reactivity.

And some other Bounty Hunters catching you red handed working hand to hand with the Barbarian king or flanking you while you're busy with the undeads.
Really, it could learn a few tricks from Urtuk and also develop into a full fledge RPG.

There is some ingredients to make something epic, I agree but i doubt it'll ever happen, also, they should start by fixing their quest design.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

I think one problem with the game is that it still revolves around your company. The level scaling even if limited is only small part of the problem. The problem is that the world is really very static, not to mention small and empty-ish. There no other active parties. Like political powers that actively and constantly fight and scheme with one another (not a just a lame crisis). Like other mercenary parties that aren't just there to look nice and maybe fight one but can actively compete for work/money/fame/famed items/other with other companies. And so on, many possibilities. This game have a great tactical battles element, some good atmosphere and somewhat original premise but the world is mediocre.

That is by far the biggest flaw of the game. The world map is a facade with very little underneath. Everything else is very solid, the combat, the weapon/armor system, the art and music, the setting. The game is still good because these components are well done, but I can't bring myself to play for longer than the first crisis, I either lose earlier or retire after beating the crisis.

I wish they made another game using the same systems, but with a hand-crafted world map and encounters/dungeons, no enemies spawning out of thin air or because you got a contract, no settlements that are under siege by bandits and monsters 24/7 because the player needs something to do. They could add more of a storyline with actual distinctive factions where you get to pick sides, multi-part contracts, and relegate procedural generation only to some parts like random encounters, placement of some locations and maybe the stats/gear of characters and enemies to some degree. Anything but endlessly spawning level-scaled camps and monsters, having a random map each time is not worth it.