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

[Jimmious]

I shall wait for the new version of the mod. It's a bit too ambitious and I'm afraid of mods with too many new features

 

[Zanzoken]

Lone Wolf is the bomb. Wish there were other starts where you have a "PC". Makes the game feel even more "personal"

Hopefully if there's a BB2 this will just be a standard feature. Always felt odd to me to be cast as this invisible management character who leads the company but doesn't actually fight. And from a gameplay standpoint it's not uncommon in SRPGs for there to be character(s) that cause a fail state if they die, i.e. Marth in Fire Emblem.

Bonus points if you're allowed to choose a background, stats, etc that cause some unique events and interactions throughout your playthrough.

 

[Covenant]

Lone Wolf is the bomb. Wish there were other starts where you have a "PC". Makes the game feel even more "personal"

Hopefully if there's a BB2 this will just be a standard feature. Always felt odd to me to be cast as this invisible management character who leads the company but doesn't actually fight. And from a gameplay standpoint it's not uncommon in SRPGs for there to be character(s) that cause a fail state if they die, i.e. Marth in Fire Emblem.

Bonus points if you're allowed to choose a background, stats, etc that cause some unique events and interactions throughout your playthrough.

You need to implement it carefully. On the balance I agree with you, but without safeguards (I haven't played the new DLC yet, but I understand that Lone Wolves start with decent armour at least?) you're going to have a character with whom, as the game progresses, there's an increasing need to treat with kid gloves. And the fantasy for most people with their main character isn't to be babysat, it's to be a powerhouse. So that might deter them from making it the standard rather than an option.

I think a good compromise solution would be this: rather than making them a regular bro, give them a specialised role of their own that feels fun and powerful without putting the player at risk of sudden death. Something like the heroes of Heroes of Might and Magic II-III, hanging back but casting devastating spells (which wouldn't be appropriate for Battle Brothers, of course). Arming them with something like a ballista or a cannon seems a setting-appropriate alternative as well as providing another avenue for upgrades, and there's no reason the enemy couldn't have someone in that same role as well. You wouldn't expect your average group of bandit thugs firing siege weaponry at you, certainly, but a company from a noble house could easily have an officer at the back manning the company cannon.

It varies depending on the length of the game, of course. If you can get through your average Battle Brothers campaign in twenty hours or so, it's not a huge deal if you risk losing your progress to an unlucky headshot or two on your player character. But for people who rack up huge amounts of hours on a single campaign, or if it's a longer game, some people just won't be able to deal with that level of ever-present risk by having a player character on the battlefield.

That said I've been playing with a self-appointed player character (where if he dies, I lose) since the game first came out, so maybe I'm making too many assumptions and a lot of average players would really go for it. It's just that generally, in less communities, there's so much talk about savescumming and easy mods and whining that they generally come off as a bunch of total scrubs who'd throw a shitfit the first time an orc berserker beheaded their darling avatar.

 

[Payd Shell]

I think a built-your-own-start toolbox would be decent. You could use a point system to assign different weaknesses and strengths. A lone wolf start but with a barbarian background would be neat. I guess you can already sorta do that with the save editor, it just doesn't feel right because a lot of the events don't take into account your background, especially if you edit the start.

 

[Tigranes]

Marched down to the South dominated by the faction that hates me because I happened to kill and loot some of their mercenaries

Found a borderline friendly town

3k for a caravan quest? Count me in

Waylaid by 32 heavily armed mercenaries wanting revenge, who proceed to trash the caravan of the faction they're working for to get to us

Flee

Borderline friendly town hates us again

 

[Payd Shell]

Serves you right for taking a caravan contract.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Serves you right for taking a caravan contract.

Caravan contracts are a good source of uniques.

 

[hivemind]

?

proofs

 

[Payd Shell]

Serves you right for taking a caravan contract.

Caravan contracts are a good source of uniques.

they're also a good source of game ending fights

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

?

proofs

Well supplied settlements are more likely to have uniques on sale.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Who can afford those things?

Apart from Reinhardt obviously

 

[Teut Busnet]

Unique Bows seem to be sold by 'Weaponsmiths' now, not by 'Fletchers'. FYI.

Spoiler

 

[Payd Shell]

Jesus, An actual lone Lone Wolf start is fucking insane. You just need one little streak of bad RNG and you're done for. You also need to spend a lot of time camping around to fix your hp and armor if you survive the first few battles. Speaking of bad RNG, it's probably just human bias but seriously, as soon as enemies have 25% hit chance it feels like they hit every second attack. Meanwhile one roundswing with a greatsword rolled higher than 95 with each attack, meaning it would have missed no matter what. This happened twice in a campaign that ended after 5 fights. You don't really get to swing your AoE attack around because you'll be exhausted after the first. If you're not stunned into oblivion, that is.

If you don't want to waste your time or reload a lot, it seems simply better to just hire a few cripples as meat shields. You don't even need to give them any equipment, their job is to die, nothing else. Hell, paying for two cripples to sacrifice themselves for you is cheaper than buying tools to repair all the armor damage you'll take otherwise.

 

[Payd Shell]

Okay, now I'm convinced something is up with the RNG. For several rounds, brigand raiders were at least hitting one attack out of two despite having sub 20% chance to hit. And I missed 2 roundswings with 80-95%. I don't recall having these retarded streaks so often before the Northmen DLC. I had every advantage you could think off, confident morale, high ground and they were all wavering. I think Lone Wolf is broken on Iron man. I literally couldn't do anything. I even hired some meatshields as bait to lure some of them away, but three of them just kept hitting me and I hit none of them. ARGH

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Yeah, playing Lone Wolf without any helpers feels like 50/50 you die in any random fight vs 6-7 thugs. In some terrain you can camp in a choke point and kill 2-3 at a time but in plains you're screwed after 1 unlucky round. One stun, puncture or missed aoe attack and you're done because you get surrounded and get too much fatigue from enemy attacks to do anything. I wouldn't hire cripples because their hp and resolve sucks and they will just give you morale checks when they die, but after a few fights you can get some melee backgrounds like militia, bastards or retired soldiers and the advantage you get just from having that random guy or two with 80 armor, shortsword and a round shield is insane. They level up super fast too.

 

[Grunker]

Serves you right for taking a caravan contract.

Caravan contracts are a good source of uniques.

they're also a good source of game ending fights

Yeah the fact you can control terrain, time of day and enemy composition can really fuck you in the ass. Especially since I started running more archers night time fights are lethal as f

 

[Payd Shell]

Yeah, playing Lone Wolf without any helpers feels like 50/50 you die in any random fight vs 6-7 thugs. In some terrain you can camp in a choke point and kill 2-3 at a time but in plains you're screwed after 1 unlucky round. One stun, puncture or missed aoe attack and you're done because you get surrounded and get too much fatigue from enemy attacks to do anything. I wouldn't hire cripples because their hp and resolve sucks and they will just give you morale checks when they die, but after a few fights you can get some melee backgrounds like militia, bastards or retired soldiers and the advantage you get just from having that random guy or two with 80 armor, shortsword and a round shield is insane. They level up super fast too.

Yeah, but I feel like I'm missing a lot while thugs with 20-50% hit all the time. It's rare that a fucking thug misses two attacks in a row. Getting murdered with butter knives and wooden sticks is insane considering you should have an advantage with all the levels, stats and gear you get. I sometimes get to the lone wolf perk but one of the very next fights is usually where I get killed. I could just be salty, of course and I had a lot more success when I hired people, but I want that sweet solo xp. Then again you're getting battered so hard anyway that you're spending the next 3 days repairing your armor, hiring 2 somewhat decent bros gets you much further progression wise. I had a pretty good company going after 20 days when I did that, but the chosen that hid amongst a thrall only camp put a swift end in a 1v1 duel.

 

[Country_Gravy]

The RNG is messed up. I roll a 90 or over at least 10% of the time.

 

[Edija]

I rage at the RNG just as the next guy, but I understand that it's not biased in any sense or form. We usually don't notice the RNG that favors us if it's not extremely lucky. You know that time you hit a guy three times in a row with a mediocre chance? The time your spearwall hit 6-7 times in a row? Well, I'd rage like a madman if the AI did that to me.

 

[Old Hans]

everytime my asshole guys run out of stamina during the big fights, I always tell myself "ok im definitely gonna pick up fatigue recovery talent as soon as possible" then I level up and think "oh I better take this other talent first." then he'll die on the next fight because he ran out of stamina

 

[Maculo]

A reddit user (u/thethief1992) in the Battle Brother's subreddit posted a neat guide to a Cultist plathrough, which includes conversion and sacrifice event tips. The thread is found: https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrot...ist_guide_includes_spoilers_from_codereading/

I copied the text here below.

Spoiler

I'm putting together a guide to Cultist events and play-style, will update this if I read the code wrongly.

So why would you want to play as the Cultists?

Pros:

+Cultist gets awesome buff as below

+Cultist are dirt cheap in wages and Converted Cultists gets a paycut

+Cultist don't give a shit about death of brothers so morale is kept higher on average. Which is great because their sacrifice mechanic encourages a very meat shield playstyle

+You get a ton of them randomly joining and easily fulfill the Davkul event requirements

Cons:

-Roughly every 20 days, an unavoidable sacrifice event could happen and piss off any non-cultists. Deserting brothers can take their equipment with them if you can't drop over to a tavern to make them drunk or provide them with Happy powder (Vampires Ashes + Alp Skin)!

-Since you have mostly cultists, you missed out on many backgrounds that can give good benefits from random events.



Cultist Conversion Event:

This events fires roughly every 13 days and converts any lowborns without bright or any non-nobles with dumb traits. Taking this into account, the backgrounds that can be converted are (Bold indicators good backgrounds to hire from experience and datamined stats;

Lowborns:

Poacher, Deserter, Shepherd, Brawler, Thief, Houndmaster, Lumberjack, Farmhand, Graverobber, Fisherman, Ratcatcher, Militia, Miller, Miner, Gravedigger, Vagabond, Daytaler, Refugee, Peddler, Tailor, Beggar, Butcher

Dumb-dumbs (Tryout those with titles such as "The Odd, Dumb, Slow etc" or everyone when you are rich:

Hunter, Sellsword, Squire, Raider, Retired Soldier, Killer on the Run, Caravan Hand, Servant, Eunuch



Cultist Sacrifice Event:

The code choose 2 brothers from roughly the bottom 4 brothers with the least EXP to be sacrificed. So always carry 4 meatbags and try to keep them out of combat as much as possible.

After the sacrifice. for every cultist, there's a 50% chance to upgrade the Davkul trait to the next level. All cultist has an invisible level 0 trait at the start except for the starting 4. All cultist gets a huge mood boost after a sacrifice.

The levels provide the following benefit (thanks u/JerekKruger !):

1. Fanatic: +5 Resolve, and doesn't take morale checks from allies dying
   
   
2. Zealot: +10 Resolve, and doesn't take morale checks from allies dying or losing HPs
   
   
3. Acolyte: +10 Resolve, +2 Fatigue Recovery, and doesn't take morale checks from allies dying or losing HPs
   
   
4. Disciple: +10 Resolve, +2 Fatigue Recovery, +20 HP, and doesn't take morale checks from allies dying, losing HPs or Fresh Injuries. Note: This effectively makes them immune to non-supernatural morale damage, making Resolve a dumpstat if you slap on an undead trophy or not bringing them into those battles at all!
   
   
5. Chosen: +10 Resolve, +2 Fatigue Recovery, +20 HP, +5 Melee and Ranged Defence, and doesn't take morale checks from allies dying, losing HPs or Fresh Injuries.
   
   
6. Prophet: Same as chosen, but with a new ability to restore fatigue to all cultists at the cost of their own 25 fatigue. Can only be gained by one, not sure how this is chosen yet.
   

General Tips:

Knowing, this, the optimal strategy is to maintain at least 4 meat bags as cheap as possible, around 20% as convertible backgrounds and the rest as Cultists.

Hire every cultists but don't be afraid of dismissing them if their stats are bad. You'll get a ton of them so some of them will roll good.

For convertibles, try to keep them happy as much as possible to reduce the chance of deserting you.

If you intend to keep non-convertibles & premium backgrounds, the only way to reliably keep them is to keep a permanent source stash of Happy Powder in reserve.

 

[Jasede]

Lone Wolf is the easiest start by far. Just training hall, kill thugs, until your dude is 11. Don't hire anyone until then.

I think you're all having trouble because you don't go for some resolve early on. You need that resolve perk so that the inevitable penalty from being surrounded isn't so bad and so that you can become confident easily. Kill guys that can stun first, dagger dudes second.

Difficulty comes later. Need to be very picky because of the limit.

Edit: this applies on Expert. If you play easier I don't know.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=365360

Update 1.3.0.18
Battle Brothers - rapsdjff
Changelog for 1.3.0.18

• Changed Swordmaster champions to perform better against heavily armored characters, as to make them a threat more equal to other kinds of human champions.
  
• Fixed duel twist of 'Drive off barbarians' contract not working properly if the opponent happens to be a champion.
  
• Fixed some legendary locations not being placable on some rare map seeds.
  
• Fixed reminder event after satisfying prerequisites for entering the Goblin City potentially firing after the city has already been destroyed.
  
• Fixed potential issue with crossbowman with the 'Hex' effect killing both himself and a Hexe that is to act next.
  
• Fixed potentially wrong daily wage cost displayed in tooltip when starting a new campaign until equipment was changed once or you entered your first battle.
  
• Fixed various minor things.
  

 

[Parabalus]

Killed my first kraken, no losses .

Not sure about the optimal strategy, I turtled killing tentacles until they reduce to 5, then went for the head.
It seemed to take very little damage from killing tentacles after that point, but can you kill it with only tentacle damage?

like new stuff or whatever? are you still playing ROBINHOOD? Did you find Black Monolith, Goblin City, or the new legendary locations on the map?

 

[Payd Shell]

Lone Wolf is the easiest start by far. Just training hall, kill thugs, until your dude is 11. Don't hire anyone until then.

I think you're all having trouble because you don't go for some resolve early on. You need that resolve perk so that the inevitable penalty from being surrounded isn't so bad and so that you can become confident easily. Kill guys that can stun first, dagger dudes second.

Difficulty comes later. Need to be very picky because of the limit.

Edit: this applies on Expert. If you play easier I don't know.

It's difficult if you're retarded (like me). I always took on contracts early where you need to catch the thieving thugs. Problem is, you have no control over where they will spawn and getting surrounded in your first few fights is a death sentence. It's much easier to camp next to an enemy location and wait for patrols that you can lure into a forest. Or just generally lure enemies into a forest where you can do very naughty things to them and nobody will hear them scream for help. Forests are your friends.