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

[Reinhardt]

The old map also had rivers.

AND GREENER PASTURES!

 

[normie]

That is why I always autistically pick the few simples designs available for my companies

I have been dying for simple stuff such as a skull or skull and crossbones type banner, or even plain color banners

this, THIS

beyond the art itself, all the poles have too many bells, dildos and tinsels attached to them

 

[Reinhardt]

There is nothing wrong with cool stuff attached to banner, but not every banner should be like that.

I, personally, want cross like this for my company

 

[Darth Canoli]

So this weekend I played this, had some fun, rage quit, uninstalled, and came crawling back and reinstalled.

Four times.

Last time was after beating a 3 skull bandit mission without a loss only to meet bounty hunters afterwards telling me my kill was now their kill.

I tried fighting them but lol nope, not happening. They one-shot doods every round with crossbows. Of course this is a special encounter with no way to avoid. Maybe I can run away after the battle starts?

I'll probably reinstall again after work.

Just had something similar but with orcs (legends mod) everything was alright until the game threw at me a group of orcs, not only there's more of them but they have orc warriors as well and we're talking day 30 or so.

After the dust settles, 2 rookies down, my fencer and another one with a permanent injury.

But the story doesn't end here, around day 45-50, at some point , i'm ambushed by another orc group, again, they have the numbers for them, like almost x2, but this time, a lot more of orc warriors and 3 special fucking orcs with their fucking war-cry giving them morale and having the Gheist effect on my guys ...

I was handling them from the top of a hill with 2 good archers and my seer when they made my hedge knight panic ...

Reloaded, tried to escape, failed and ran away as soon as the battle started, a fine strategy, if you ask me.
God bless the auto-save!

Tigranes early screens have a HoMM 2 feel as well.

 

[Tigranes]

Usually, modern depictions of medieval stuff tends to be a lot more ostentatious because people are going off the rare ceremonial piece that ends up in a museum - that beautiful jewel-encrusted solid gold handle sword was never used in combat, it was for some Italian prince's elaborate coronation, but it's the most spectacular thing in the museum.

That's not exactly the case with coat of arms, though. Interestingly, as far as I've read, coats of arms originated with tournaments, a more ceremonial setting to begin with, and only later expanded into actual battlefields (as well as civilian populations), so it wouldn't be quite ridiculous to imagine a derivative setting with quite elaborate coats even for mercenary companies. It is still rather fanciful to find things like the 'screaming souls in the underworld' banner.

 

[Reinhardt]

Well, mercs actually liked fancy stuff.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Swiss mercs. Don't fuck with the pope bros

German Landskneckts . SUPER FANCY LADS.

Italian Condottieri

Fantasy fiction is way too grim and dark. Real Battle Bros had SWAG.

 

[agris]

In artistic renderings, sure. In practice, if they were in battle, they were in stinking clothes that reeked of blood piss and sweat, and poorly tying off tourniquets for their friends while those around them died with exposed bones and severed organs.

Battle was not pretty, not even in France in the 1700s.

 

[Razzoriel]

In artistic renderings, sure. In practice, if they were in battle, they were in stinking clothes that reeked of blood piss and sweat, and poorly tying off tourniquets for their friends while those around them died with exposed bones and severed organs.

Battle was not pretty, not even in France in the 1700s.

You gotta look slick when your brother is hammering that arrow stuck in your thigh to remove it safely.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Running away worked. Why didn't I think of that last night?

aaaaand got double the quest award due to having the bounty



Until the next rage quit uninstall that is...

 

[Barbarian]

I see some warhammer art with those elaborate banners frequently, but honestly? The simpler stuff looks much better, specially if it matches the available helmet/armor colors(and most of the available banners DON'T). Also a matching painted shield that doesn't look like a professional painter spent 3 months working on it with paint and brushes(just for some random orc to smash it in 2 seconds).

Noble houses do look great and I wish I could get such a theme for my company. Well, not like a heraldic noble house style, but say a black shield with a simple logo(i.e: white skull) couples with matching shields and the black painted helmets. Likewise other simpler designs that match the available helmet paint colors. The Kraken banner is a good example, with the available crimson helmet paint.

Just the noble banners alone look better than most of what is available for the mercs, imho. 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.

 

[Harthwain]

Everything is a political statement, even the complete absence of it. When you promote the emptiness of political imaginery in things and enforce it, you're promoting positivism, which wants to remove all ideologies. So in a way, you're being an ideologue by trying to promote lack of ideologies.

Absence of something is proof of something?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I see some warhammer art with those elaborate banners frequently, but honestly? The simpler stuff looks much better, specially if it matches the available helmet/armor colors(and most of the available banners DON'T). Also a matching painted shield that doesn't look like a professional painter spent 3 months working on it with paint and brushes(just for some random orc to smash it in 2 seconds).

Noble houses do look great and I wish I could get such a theme for my company. Well, not like a heraldic noble house style, but say a black shield with a simple logo(i.e: white skull) couples with matching shields and the black painted helmets. Likewise other simpler designs that match the available helmet paint colors. The Kraken banner is a good example, with the available crimson helmet paint.

Just the noble banners alone look better than most of what is available for the mercs, imho. 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.

Or maybe you like them better because you can't have them ...

 

[Zariusz]

Ok but when we are going to have orc bros?

 

[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?