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

[Murk]

"Captured Orc Slave" would be interesting, kind of like an attack dog where you can't really control it, but it goes berserk and possibly attacks you too.

 

[Dayyālu]

Seriously, I'm not regretting at all buying the DLCs full price. Stuff is golden and it manages to solve one of the basic problems of my first games in BB, that the enemy variety started to grind you down into dust after a while.

With the DLCs, the array of monsters is big enough that there's always some.... variety. Hell, in my ongoing game I am around day 60 and I fought orcs once. The addition of extras and add-ons makes the equipping people all more enjoyable, and the Taxidermist items gives you direct rewards in fighting the beasties. It's all good fun and it keeps up.

I'm still amazed, tho, at how the basic gameplay loop of Battle Brothers is broken. The game, as they devs dreamed of it, doesn't work. You can't play it as a roguelite tac game where losses are acceptable. Losses aren't acceptable, never, because the expense for raising and equipping a fighter is enormous, and even a good contract is never worth losing a man. Never. Maybe the "boss fights" at the end of the DLCs are worth it, who knows.

I wonder if there's a way to fix it. Giving you common high-leveled recruits? Let you purposefully order replacements at a higher level and with a specific set of traits, for a very high price? So many things do not properly work from a design standpoint. Does someone enjoy playing this ironman? Because for sure it's not "how the game is intended to be played". Roguelikes thrive on damage and situation control. Often, in BB, you have none.

Also, whoever designed the "new" enemies should get a medal, some are insanely annoying (and enjoyable) to fight.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm still amazed, tho, at how the basic gameplay loop of Battle Brothers is broken. The game, as they devs dreamed of it, doesn't work. You can't play it as a roguelite tac game where losses are acceptable. Losses aren't acceptable, never, because the expense for raising and equipping a fighter is enormous, and even a good contract is never worth losing a man. Never. Maybe the "boss fights" at the end of the DLCs are worth it, who knows.

I wonder if there's a way to fix it. Giving you common high-leveled recruits? Let you purposefully order replacements at a higher level and with a specific set of traits, for a very high price? So many things do not properly work from a design standpoint. Does someone enjoy playing this ironman? Because for sure it's not "how the game is intended to be played". Roguelikes thrive on damage and situation control. Often, in BB, you have none.

I think a few economy changes would be warranted. With the salary Bros demand and what the contracts pay why would *anyone* run a merc company in this world?

A random peasant farmer asks 100-200 gold + 300 a month which is insane. Copper or silver would make more sense, the game obviously uses gold as a convenience and because of genre conventions, but still, it's way too high. Even the knights asking 5k are overly high. I would reduce these prices by 90% *or* have them equip themselves Mount and Blade style. That's the only way these salary prices make any sense, if the Bros save up the cash and use it to upgrade their gear. Where else does that 150+ crowns per day go?

The other thing is loot should be more valuable. Enemy gear vanishing into nothing on death is not acceptable in a game like this. Even if a piece of armor has zero durability it should NOT disappear. It's still valuable. Armorers would pay good money for salvaged armor because it was much easier to refurbish and resell than crafting from scratch. Many medieval mercenaries fought solely for plunder, the chance of looting a battlefield of armor and weapons and selling it was enough to set them up for years.

If Bros cost little and could be paid in loot, the situation would be less severe. But as it is you are correct, I learned early on as losses wiped out all the starter cash and contracts I did I had to keep everyone alive. You already run out of money if you don't do a mission every 1-3 days at least for the first month or two, and everyone needs 10-15k worth of kit to stay relevant in endgame.

 

[Barbarian]

Ok but when we are going to have orc bros?

I prefer negro bro and wymmin bro as unique event npcs.

Pajeets and muhammads will probably already be in the new dlc.

 

[Payd Shell]

You can lose a good bro every now and then but the difficulty scaling in general makes it hard to bounce back if it ever happens. Economy is one part of the equation, especially since recruiting dudes is a giant gold sink until you're lucky enough to find one with not shit traits, good starting stats and stars placed where you want them. I think the entire world scales with time, your equipment and the average level of your bros, it doesn't help that most enemies prefer squishy targets and even hedge knights who start at level 4 or 5 I believe can't do shit because they'll be exhausted by walking two tiles if they're not wearing paper armor.

 

[Haba]

Also it doesn't make much sense that the noble houses would go with simple and straitforward designs while the sellswords would go with elaborate drawings with golden decals and whatever.

Eeh, it really depends. It is kinda hard to find decent examples from the interwebs (literally history book stuff) but there were all kinds.


Black Army

 

[Reinhardt]

You can't play it as a roguelite tac game where losses are acceptable. Losses aren't acceptable, never, because the expense for raising and equipping a fighter is enormous, and even a good contract is never worth losing a man. Never. Maybe the "boss fights" at the end of the DLCs are worth it, who knows.

I'm always playing with permanent destruction on. Losing men in dying world is ok.

 

[Tigranes]

people get waaaay too worried on paper about losing a bro. you can lose multiple high level killer bros and still win the game - and maybe even learn how your bros adapt to the occasion. some players never learn because they stress about it beforehand and savescum.

where it does become a wider issue is that the contract system in tandem with scaling etc means you never try to take contracts significantly out of your depth. I do enjoy ironman BB because thats when you can really find yourself taking a risk to keep your funds in the green or hire the leper from town to keep you going after a death.

But all round, there are often not enough realistic tools to stop the rot after a serious setback and too easy to just spiral to doom - I dont know how tp fix that without making the game too easy and risk free though.

A BB company with no losses ever is pointless. Without real danger there isnt much to the game.

 

[Teut Busnet]

I'm still amazed, tho, at how the basic gameplay loop of Battle Brothers is broken. The game, as they devs dreamed of it, doesn't work. You can't play it as a roguelite tac game where losses are acceptable. Losses aren't acceptable, never, because the expense for raising and equipping a fighter is enormous, and even a good contract is never worth losing a man. Never. Maybe the "boss fights" at the end of the DLCs are worth it, who knows.

I wonder if there's a way to fix it. Giving you common high-leveled recruits? Let you purposefully order replacements at a higher level and with a specific set of traits, for a very high price? So many things do not properly work from a design standpoint. Does someone enjoy playing this ironman? Because for sure it's not "how the game is intended to be played". Roguelikes thrive on damage and situation control. Often, in BB, you have none.

I think a few economy changes would be warranted. With the salary Bros demand and what the contracts pay why would *anyone* run a merc company in this world?

A random peasant farmer asks 100-200 gold + 300 a month which is insane. Copper or silver would make more sense, the game obviously uses gold as a convenience and because of genre conventions, but still, it's way too high. Even the knights asking 5k are overly high. I would reduce these prices by 90% *or* have them equip themselves Mount and Blade style. That's the only way these salary prices make any sense, if the Bros save up the cash and use it to upgrade their gear. Where else does that 150+ crowns per day go?

The other thing is loot should be more valuable. Enemy gear vanishing into nothing on death is not acceptable in a game like this. Even if a piece of armor has zero durability it should NOT disappear. It's still valuable. Armorers would pay good money for salvaged armor because it was much easier to refurbish and resell than crafting from scratch. Many medieval mercenaries fought solely for plunder, the chance of looting a battlefield of armor and weapons and selling it was enough to set them up for years.

If Bros cost little and could be paid in loot, the situation would be less severe. But as it is you are correct, I learned early on as losses wiped out all the starter cash and contracts I did I had to keep everyone alive. You already run out of money if you don't do a mission every 1-3 days at least for the first month or two, and everyone needs 10-15k worth of kit to stay relevant in endgame.

I don't know if you've tried the 'Northern Barbarians' origin already, but they get way more loot, including completely broken gear from enemies. (Still not everything, though and you will have to repair it to get a good price. If that's worth it depends on the gear: higher quality = worth the tools.)

At the beginning, you often spend as much as you earn, only getting more experienced Bros and - if you're lucky - better gear. But that advantage in better Bros and gear will pay off after a while, when you can finish contracts with less injuries and undamaged equipment.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't know if you've tried the 'Northern Barbarians' origin already, but they get way more loot

I'm still on my first game so no I haven't tried other origins but that does sound interesting.

I've definitely gotten over the first difficulty hump at day 35ish with 10k in the bank and decent equips for all bros. My complaints more go towards the idea of the game being a crucible of death; that only makes sense if the loot drops were more generous. When I started out I hired 8 guys like the game told me to and three of them died in the first mission, I lost 1 or 2 more per mission after that while I learned my way around the combat. This seemed like the way you were "supposed" to play but it drained away all my starting funds. I definitely would have been better off hiring like 6, spending more on gear, and save scumming them through the early battles.

 

[Tigranes]

It's perfectly viable to hire like 11 cheapest idiots near game start and figure that whoever survives is good enough to belong in the band. It's also viable to take your time and look around for good recruits and really take care of them.

I don't think ironman is great until you learn the ropes, but savescumming a massive amount might also just keep you trapped in a suboptimal situation/company setup where you just get frustrated rather than failing forward.

I like having a couple of good bowyers/crossbowmen that can really dominate early unarmoured human enemies & the likes of spiders, until the company feels stable enough to go after better bandits, undead, or even a few goblins. Spear & Shield can be a noob lifesaver that helps you with the likes of dire wolves and nachs until you learn other ways too.

What are your difficulty settings?

 

[Zariusz]

They should put a fuckin limit for Nachzehrer devouring!
Do you know how stupid is this that a badass warrior who solos dozens of bandits, undead and barbarians, makes direwolves and a damn bear(playing on legends) piss themselves and run, is invulnerable of hexens and those weird shits that make people sleep, and somehow is devoured in one turn by some fat shit that cant even hit him normally.

 

[Razzoriel]

They should put a fuckin limit for Nachzehrer devouring!
Do you know how stupid is this that a badass warrior who solos dozens of bandits, undead and barbarians, makes direwolves and a damn bear(playing on legends) piss themselves and run, is invulnerable of hexens and those weird shits that make people sleep, and somehow is devoured in one turn by some fat shit that cant even hit him normally.

Yeah at least a hit check should be done for that.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Grampy_Bone I don't know what your company looks like, but the best piece of advice I've been given for this game (apart from noob stuff like spear+shield for early game and such) is to build up a good reserve. Always keep your bros in rotation. It may seem costly, but those extra bros will repay themselves the minute you sustain a couple of 3+ day injuries, which otherwise would completely stall your game. Not to mention that you can take the loss of a good bro like a man, instead of crying about muh balinse like these other chumps, because you know there's always a decently levelled up-and-comer raring to go on the sidelines.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

What are your difficulty settings?

Beginner/Beginner

I'm on day 36 with 12 men, I had a reserve but they sat around too much. I'm in the process of tracking down higher quality long term guys.

I have 7 front 5 rear, back line is 2 polearms 3 bows, front is 2 maces, 3 flails, and 2 cleavers. Brigand Raiders are like free money now so I'm cleaning up.

Melee attack is around 60ish for most guys, level 4-5. I misjudged the level cap and importance of long term planning so I spread some stats around quite a bit. Oh well.

 

[Tigranes]

They should put a fuckin limit for Nachzehrer devouring!
Do you know how stupid is this that a badass warrior who solos dozens of bandits, undead and barbarians, makes direwolves and a damn bear(playing on legends) piss themselves and run, is invulnerable of hexens and those weird shits that make people sleep, and somehow is devoured in one turn by some fat shit that cant even hit him normally.

But you kill the dude and your bro pops back out smelly & hale, yeah?

What are your difficulty settings?

Beginner/Beginner

I'm on day 36 with 12 men, I had a reserve but they sat around too much. I'm in the process of tracking down higher quality long term guys.

I have 7 front 5 rear, back line is 2 polearms 3 bows, front is 2 maces, 3 flails, and 2 cleavers. Brigand Raiders are like free money now so I'm cleaning up.

Melee attack is around 60ish for most guys, level 4-5. I misjudged the level cap and importance of long term planning so I spread some stats around quite a bit. Oh well.

Seems fine to me, though I can't remember now what stage in the game day X roughly corresponds to.You're probably doing pretty fine overall and could get by with some losses too.

This is just me, and I'm not super good at the game, but I like every backline member to have both a ranged weapon and a polearm. Doesn't take long to fish out the polearm and start stabbing. It can also help deal with anybody that does break through your formation.

Level 5 is basically when every bro should have a very clear sense of their role & be able to fulfill that role properly - e.g. by knowing that dude started with high fatigue and is being built as a two-hander.

 

[Zariusz]

They should put a fuckin limit for Nachzehrer devouring!
Do you know how stupid is this that a badass warrior who solos dozens of bandits, undead and barbarians, makes direwolves and a damn bear(playing on legends) piss themselves and run, is invulnerable of hexens and those weird shits that make people sleep, and somehow is devoured in one turn by some fat shit that cant even hit him normally.

But you kill the dude and your bro pops back out smelly & hale, yeah?

Im playing solo crusader soo...(Legends)

But isnt this weird that after being freed from belly of the beast you are still able to fight? Then what was happening to you inside of the beast? You were unconscious or smt like that? I always wanted my two handed fully armoured bros to burst out from inside of Nachzehrer.

 

[Reinhardt]

or even a few goblins

But why? They are not worth the risk.

 

[Reinhardt]

but the best piece of advice I've been given for this game

Hey, best advice is my "trade!" advice!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

This is just me, and I'm not super good at the game, but I like every backline member to have both a ranged weapon and a polearm.

I had a similar idea, my polearm guys get more kills than the archers. But with the split between melee and ranged attack and limited level up points it seems hard to find someone that versatile.

 

[Reinhardt]

You don't need that high level in melee for archers - just give them pikes. Plus they will usually hit surrounded enemies. Or just split shields.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I had a similar idea, my polearm guys get more kills than the archers. But with the split between melee and ranged attack and limited level up points it seems hard to find someone that versatile.

I agree about the split, hard to make it work, probably not worth it either.

My archers build look roughly like this : (in no particular order)
- fast adaptation
- the other early archer perk to reduce cover malus
- pathfinding
- dodge
- anticipation
- bow mastery
- berserk
- nimble
- frenzy ? (late +25% dmg for 2 turns after one kill)

Footwork or swap optional.

They're on the frontline for range purposes.
Max Range attack, 80+ health, 20+ range def, the rest mostly on fatigue and initiative.

No billman is going to get more kills because with their range, they can pick weak targets easily for no cost because of the berserk perk.
Also, having 2 good archers on the frontline have another advantage, the enemy always rush toward you.
And if you decide to wait their first turn and dogs or whatever blocks them, the two-handed guys are going to clear the way fast enough for them to play by the end of the turn.

 

[Tigranes]

This is just me, and I'm not super good at the game, but I like every backline member to have both a ranged weapon and a polearm.

I had a similar idea, my polearm guys get more kills than the archers. But with the split between melee and ranged attack and limited level up points it seems hard to find someone that versatile.

Just give that guy with 45 Melee and 60 Ranged a side polearm. At some point you'll be glad you did.

Your bros do not need to be specialised ubermensches to succeed. They don't have to have the perfect stat spread. They can still do very well.

There are many occasions when shooting people restricts your options - tree maps, close range, etc - and you want that polearm option. Bowyers don't need quite as many feats as melee fighters, so you can also afford to take some of the footwork/swap bro / weapon swap feats if you want.

 

[Murk]

Low natural melee can be offset by the hit-chance bonus of specific attacks + surrounding/flanking.

My usual approach, even with promising (hedgeknight, sellsword, etc.) recruits is still to give them a pike and/or two-handed spear for the first few levels just in case an orc berserker or barbarian chosen decides to make his glorious last stand.

 

[Reinhardt]

Also it really helps in time of crisis when you encounter mixed groups. You really want to shoot gobbo shaman, but your bow won't help you against big armored ork boyz. Or necromancer and legion.