Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Trash]

Yikes. After slowly building up my warband I got butchered. Just butchered. Set up shop in an area with a keep and a village and did missions for them. Fought a few massive battles as I took out enemy location after location and made several thousands doing it. My Battle Bros went from rags to full mail and levelled up quite nice. Emptied the recruitment pool and the shop in both keep and village doing it. Then I got cocky. Wiped out an orc den with no problem whatsoever and was on the way back when I saw a puny group of orc raiders. Easy pickings. Chased them, cornered them and went into the fight. A few young ones and one adult. No problem. Then somehow one young orc had a lucky hit and downed a bro in the line. Next thing I know is orcs in between my guys, my archers being killed in a single turn and morale checks failing everywhere. Decided to flee when I had just one Bro left.

Had plenty of money in the bank so expected to recouperate easily. But had to travel a bit to find new recruits and stock. Turns out that outside of the area I had been cleansing the roads are empty, the villages poor and the guard towers undermanned while horrid things are everywhere. Good times.

Been gathering some info on planned features for the game. Overhype is also going to post a more comprehensive list with their plans for the game somewhere in the coming weeks.

-Injury system. Including permanent effects as a result of battle, such as dismemberment.
-Goblin faction.
-A comprehensive banner editor.
-Reputation system with two different values. How much you get the job done and how humane you are about it.
-Event system. Includes a wide range of different stuff. One of them being the possibility of duels. Another being interaction between your mercs (getting along or not getting along). sser talks about it in this thread.
-Non-combat companions. Like smith, healer and hunter.
-More diverse contracts.
-Legendary artefacts.
-Some reworking of the undead (skeletons might either get buffed to make them an actual threat when encountered, or they get moved closer to starting locations).
-More units for beast faction.
-Iron man mode.
-More art stuff. So more skins to make all the factions more diverse.
-More weapons.
-Weather is getting implemented. Seasons possibly, but more uncertain.
-Other mercenary companies that you can interact with.
-Camping mechanics.
-More enemies that attack your resolve (charm, mind control, etc.).
-Polish stuff, like being able to click on a caravan so that you follow it.
-Systems to keep track of the achievements of your mercenaries. Like how many Orc kills, how many bandit kills, etc.
-Informant for finding locations of legendary artefacts.
-A menu that keeps track of your dead bros.
-Item quality.
-Mod tools.

There's loads more ideas that they've posted about, but many of them are still uncertain whether they'll get implemented. I’m fairly confident about these, though there’s no guarantee until they get put in.

Pretty much everything in there reeks of awesome. These guys are on to something. Just some more small thoughts though.

Missions where you hunt down a specific group of raiders/scouts or whatever could be nice. Or just a general bounty on scalps/heads/enemy killed numbers that would reward you for killing of numbers of enemies.

Some implementation of news/rumors would be a neat way to keep tab on how the world is doing. Some fluff messages with info on how for instance Village X is being plagued by hunting werewolves. Keep Y has hardly any troops left due to constant fighting. Town Z's roads are beset by bandits. Or even mention of missions, for instance how Guardpost A is looking for someone to take out a bunch of undead. Or when an area is really in trouble some message to tell the player it needs help. I'd think it would make the world even more alive than it already is.

Saw in previous blogposts and posts in this thread graphics for indoor fighting, fighting at bridges and even in a village. Really hope to see this in the final game. Would be awesome to have missions where you try and defend a bridge, village or guard tower.

Earlier on there was mention of another faction labelled 'Cultists&Demons.' Hope they are still in the planning. Cleansing out demon infested temples sounds awesome.

Also, earlier on there was mention of scholarship as an equivalent of research. With clues to the location of legendary artifacts to weapons and items that you can create from exotic ingredients (like the remains of magical foes) to further your cause. Again hoping this is on the to-do list.

Anyway, love the game so far. These guys have done a splendid job and I do really hope that the EA will make them be able to keep improving this.

 

[Ulminati]

I'm usually wary of buying early access games, but this thread is (almost) as heartening as Underail, so fuck it. Grabbed a copy for myself and a spare to give away at some later point.
Looking forward to some turn-based murderin'

 

[oscar]

Yup I was getting that 'haha I'm indestructible' feeling until a mission against 15 or so orcs (not a problem, I'd done plenty of 3,500~ gold missions). While I'd previously laughed off beserkers as target practice for my archers one got a kill and then ended up rolling my line up from the south, taking down four or so brothers (including my two level 8 archers). Ended the mission with only Wendel the Bear and an old blademaster surviving (and 25,000 gold). Seems like beserkers get a stat buff, fatigue recovery and more AP for getting a kill. Going to make them archer priority in future.

One complaint I have is that it seems random if an orc stun charge works or not. I was under the impression that having a brother a hex behind or using shieldwall stopped it from working but it sometimes seems to succeed with both conditions satisfied. Is it a percentage based thing?

 

[Trash]

Think it is a percentage based thing. When you bash someone with a club with the knockout strike it also seem to have a percentage based chance to succeed. Do know that the shieldwall being two brother's deep stops the big adult orcs from pushing their way in.

The orc that fucked me over was just a young one. He got lucky, killed a guy, another orc went in my line and then proceeded to kill all three archers. From then on it all fell apart quickly. Game has a habit of being able to mess you up when you don't expect it. I like.

 

[Lucky]

Pretty much everything in there reeks of awesome. These guys are on to something. Just some more small thoughts though.

Missions where you hunt down a specific group of raiders/scouts or whatever could be nice. Or just a general bounty on scalps/heads/enemy killed numbers that would reward you for killing of numbers of enemies.

Some implementation of news/rumors would be a neat way to keep tab on how the world is doing. Some fluff messages with info on how for instance Village X is being plagued by hunting werewolves. Keep Y has hardly any troops left due to constant fighting. Town Z's roads are beset by bandits. Or even mention of missions, for instance how Guardpost A is looking for someone to take out a bunch of undead. Or when an area is really in trouble some message to tell the player it needs help. I'd think it would make the world even more alive than it already is.

Saw in previous blogposts and posts in this thread graphics for indoor fighting, fighting at bridges and even in a village. Really hope to see this in the final game. Would be awesome to have missions where you try and defend a bridge, village or guard tower.

Earlier on there was mention of another faction labelled 'Cultists&Demons.' Hope they are still in the planning. Cleansing out demon infested temples sounds awesome.

Also, earlier on there was mention of scholarship as an equivalent of research. With clues to the location of legendary artifacts to weapons and items that you can create from exotic ingredients (like the remains of magical foes) to further your cause. Again hoping this is on the to-do list.

Anyway, love the game so far. These guys have done a splendid job and I do really hope that the EA will make them be able to keep improving this.

Fairly confident that bounties like that will get included as low-tier quest types (with high tier equivalents for tough monsters). I haven’t seen this be confirmed though.

One of the things that was uncertain but which might still get added, is a tavern in cities. I could see you being able to collect rumours there, if it ever gets implemented. Or instead we might be able to also buy some rumours from that informant next to learning about artefacts.

I forgot to mention it, ‘cause I misremembered it still being uncertain, but yeah indoor fighting will also get added – including dungeons. Possibly with torch mechanics so that you have to sacrifice that shield arm for some light. The location on the worldmap where you fight will also have a larger effect on the battle environments. So that’s the bridges and town fights that you saw.

At least one full faction will also get added - Goblins function as a separate faction, but are also part of the larger Greenskin faction. I’m almost certain that this is the Cultist and Demons faction, as that was what they used to talk about and the Cultist background is already in, but this might have changed since then.

I think that scholar is the informant. I’m pretty certain that the search for legendary artefacts is supposed to be more involved beyond money for information, so he’d fit that. The gathering of ingredients I’m less confident in, as they did have a crafting system planned but put it off due to complexity, though it might still get added.

Yup I was getting that 'haha I'm indestructible' feeling until a mission against 15 or so orcs (not a problem, I'd done plenty of 3,500~ gold missions). While I'd previously laughed off beserkers as target practice for my archers one got a kill and then ended up rolling my line up from the south, taking down four or so brothers (including my two level 8 archers). Ended the mission with only Wendel the Bear and an old blademaster surviving (and 25,000 gold). Seems like beserkers get a stat buff, fatigue recovery and more AP for getting a kill. Going to make them archer priority in future.

One complaint I have is that it seems random if an orc stun charge works or not. I was under the impression that having a brother a hex behind or using shieldwall stopped it from working but it sometimes seems to succeed with both conditions satisfied. Is it a percentage based thing?

Berserkers gain a damage bonus, increased resolve, higher initiative and more damage resistance for killing more and more. They also have the Berserk perk, so they regain AP for each kill as well...
I once had a battle against Orcs that included militia on my side who rushed ahead. A berserker happened to reach them with enough AP to attack, before I could join the fight. Result was that he killed most of them with that 360-arc swing, picked off the survivors and then beasted through my entire company.

Like Trash says, I'm pretty sure that it's a percentage based chance. It's just that it almost always works, so you don't notice.

 

[Agesilaus]

I think the most valuable ability for a large, well equipped team is the 3rd tier fatigue-reducing aoe power. It's the only way I can have my men go the distance in fights where my 12 brothers are outnumbered.

Also, is the bill hook an early-mid game only weapon? I find the two handed sword to be much better, strong brothers with the right perks can routinely take out three or four enemies a turn. The only use I can think of for bills is weak characters who suck at archery. i guess they can just hide behind the line in their gambesons and poke away, but they only get one swing and their accuracy sucks.


Finally, level cap is 11, right? Any plans to change this, perhaps to 12? I have a couple of brothers that need another perk.

Edit: Anyone think the military cleaver is a tad OP on high melee skill brothers? It is basically an instakill on anyone without a helmet, and it's just a good sword in general, too. Wish the noble sword had the some ability that awesome.

 

[Eyeball]

What is the advantage of swords anyhow? They're pretty crap against anything vaguely armoured and can't bust down shields like axes can. Is the ripose skill really that good?

 

[Modron]

What is the advantage of swords anyhow? They're pretty crap against anything vaguely armoured and can't bust down shields like axes can. Is the ripose skill really that good?

Low fatigue cost per attack, with that perk that reduces cost by 20% each swing only costs 8 fatigue aka you would only be building a deficit of 1 fatigue per round attacking twice. Plus royal sword is like 85% effective against armor and does slightly more damage than top spear so it's roughly as damaging as those.

 

[Galdred]

These ghosts are really tough to tackle with a low level party. They kept routing my men, and them flying in the middle of opponents resulted in pretty bad things. Hopefully, the valiant sacrifice of the whole town militia allowed my remaining men to rally.
How do you handle them? Their damage output is not that high (although ignoring armor does hurt), but they usually travel with other undeads that can make short work of your routed guys.

 

[Eyestabber]

Hey Guys,
feel free to take a look at our last DevBlog article I copy-pasted here for your viewing pleasure.
Cheers!


Dev Blog #23: About our motivation and inspiration
This week we go into our personal inspiration and motivation so you may get a better understanding of why we are making this game and what keeps us going. Two of our team members talk about what inspired them to start Battle Brothers and why they think a game like this is due. A little disclaimer: These are highly personal and subjective opinions by our team members and not the studio itself.


Paul
When talking about my sources of inspiration and the reason why I decided to make this game happen, I have to go way back into the 90s. Although I have been influenced by a ton of great games over the course of all these years it all boils down to two key impacts.

The first one was Hero Quest (the boardgame). That game really opened my eyes about what is possible. I still think this is a masterwork of game design. Apart from the solid and deep basic boardgame mechanics it had a great atmosphere and was extremely “sandboxy” for a board game. You were actually encouraged to use the provided content to make up and play your own adventures, that’s basically the definition of a sandbox.

The second big impact followed some years later when X-Com – UFO Defense came out. I don’t know where to start when praising this game. It had it all: Awesome graphics, brutal and intense atmosphere and an incredible freedom of choice. The game perfectly succeeded in making you believe you’re actually fighting off a real invasion instead of just playing one scenario after the other. The level of immersion created in this game was (and for the most part still is) unmatched.

Shortly after finishing the add-on “Terror from the Deep” I started wondering why no one simply transfers the X-com mechanics to a fantasy/medieval setting. I had to wait for…well I am still waiting for a game like that. When I am looking at the current trends in game development I’m gonna wait for another 20 years before a game like that is made.

That’s why I decided to take matters in my own hands and begun working on Battle Brothers.



Jaysen
Looking at the gaming world today shows two big streams of gaming projects. The multi-million AAA games and the small independant games. I, as a life-long gamer, have my quarrels with both of them and the state they are in gave me a big push when deciding to go and start my own gaming project.

Regarding the big gaming titles, there is are a lot of issues why I think most of them are not very good games but this essentially boils down to two major things: Simplicity and linearity.

Simplicity and linearity:

The trend to simplifying and streamlining gaming mechanics started around ten or fifteen years ago with games becoming more of a mainstream entertainment. As great as it is that more and more people are playing computergames, this lead to many games being extremely simple and short. I personally love to sink some time and effort into a game to learn the mechanics and also being able to find some new mechanic even after having played for a few hours. Once a player is able to completely look through all the game mechanics a game becomes perfectly predictable and has nothing surprising to offer anymore thus making it boring in most cases.

The second big thing making the simplicity problem even worse is linearity. Many AAA-games do not seem to know whether they want to be a game or a movie. Endless cutscenes, strictly linear mission, linear story design and a lack of choices make a game an incredibly boring experience. Each and every player that ever played that particular game is experiencing the exact same thing that some story-writer thought would be entertaining. I think that all people are different and everyone has his own understanding of what is a good story or an entertaining game. Unfortunately, there are very few games in the AAA sector that both have complex mechanics and also allow the player to experience his own story depending on the way he plays the game.

Indiegames:

This leads us to the second branch of gaming: Indiegames. There is a lot of creative energy and new ideas here which is great but as some people are starting to make a lot of money with really simple games a lot of copycats hit the scene. As fun and novel they may once have been, please do not make another “2D-sidescrolling-action-plattformer” with fancy/artsy graphics – we have more than enough of those.

Although it seems to be paradox, many indiegames suffer from the problem of simplicity as well as AAA-games but for another reason. I suppose the simplicity is due to resource constraints that indiegames usually suffer from thus prohibiting complexity and a lot of content. Many of them evolve around just one rather simple mechanic that, once understood, offers nothing new or entertaining. I want them to be more complex and deep and offer more than an half-our of entertainment until putting them away thinking “nice idea, fancy graphics but where is the gameplay?”. There is so much more to a game than pixel-graphics!

All of the above made me want a game that offers freedom of choice, complex mechanics and a world to dive in and experience your own story in the way you personally think is fun. All this while offering enough content, variations and new stuff to keep you occupied for a long time. As I do not expect a game like this coming from the AAA- or the Indiegame-sector, I decided to try making a game myself that fulfills all these points and thats where “Battle Brothers” was started.

This is nothing short of PURE GOLD. I just can't find a single word I'd disagree with. Will buy early access as soon as I get home.

 

[The Glitterdust Golem]

Decided to get this on a whim and I'm only five minutes in .. but wow, I already love it to pieces. The little biographies, quirks/flaws and the way mercenaries are outfitted to their background makes it incredibly easy to slip into this game. Seeing an actual Hedge Knight all armoured up amidst a roster of barely dressed peasants is an exquisite tease.

Hope Early Access goes well for you guys.

 

[Lucky]

These ghosts are really tough to tackle with a low level party. They kept routing my men, and them flying in the middle of opponents resulted in pretty bad things. Hopefully, the valiant sacrifice of the whole town militia allowed my remaining men to rally.
How do you handle them? Their damage output is not that high (although ignoring armor does hurt), but they usually travel with other undeads that can make short work of your routed guys.

You really want to kill those ghosts as fast possible or it'll turn into a big mess. Give your most accurate guys (ranged or melee) Fast Adaptation ahead of time. it's a really good starting perk with lots of uses and it's particularly useful here. Archers should shoot at the ghosts as often as possible, so that both Overwhelmed and Fast Adaptation kick in. Give your melee guys spears for their bonus to hit and have them poke away. Also give the spears users back-up weapons so that they can switch if they have to fight the other undead.

Also, is the bill hook an early-mid game only weapon? I find the two handed sword to be much better, strong brothers with the right perks can routinely take out three or four enemies a turn. The only use I can think of for bills is weak characters who suck at archery. i guess they can just hide behind the line in their gambesons and poke away, but they only get one swing and their accuracy sucks.

It's useful in the early game and from that point onward I mostly use it as a back-up for archers. You can also use it when you want to have your bros be two-lines deep for the Orc charge and still give them something to do. Not deadly enough my actual fighters though, those get the greatswords.


Finally found myself a sizable late game undead horde. Very different from fighting Orcs and bandits! It really feels like I have to break through their lines, before my guys are exhausted and left without any armour. Couldn't afford to send a guy around the flank to get the necromancer either, because then he'd just get eaten by a vampire gank squad. Just had my berserkers slam through the center instead. I like to give them Orc weapons and buff their fatigue like crazy. Still lost four guys though. Including one getting wacked by his recently made undead buddy. Going to try and see if I can jump into a fight between undead and Orcs next. Should make for a wonderful clusterfuck.

 

[Ulminati]

Spent most of the night trying stuff out. I'm liking what I see so far.

I'll need to get a bit more familiar with everything before I can start giving feedback on combat. (Except swords have been underwhelming so far. And Raapys (woodcutter, dexterous, greataxe) killed 8 zomgies in 8 turns, standing on high ground and oneshotting them as they lumbered up to him).

One thing I did notice though is the hiring UI could use some work. At the very least, it'd be nice if the tooltips saying what stats a profession gives were visible on the hiring screen. I made do with tabbing out to a wiki, but it seems like such a small fix to add. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on the hidden traits yet. I hired a hedge knight for nearly all my cash, and he turned out to be fat+drunk+dastardly. It's a bit of a bummer to get multiple negatraits on a new dude. At least I could take his gear and sacrifice him in the meatgrinder. Limiting the # of negatraits or giving a better heads-up that they're there would be nice.

Atm I try to run a battle line wher eevery other battlebro is a spearman for the knockback thingie. In between I have hammers/axes with a couple of crossbowmen hovering around the flanks. One thing I noticed is that sometimes enemies will jump right past the spear defese thing. If it misses or something happens so it doens't go off, it won't go off for the rest of that turn. I kind of wish there was better feedback on what's going on there.

 

[Eyestabber]

http://postimg.org/image/k0pemb8pb/

So, yeah, I did buy early access as soon as I got home (proof on the link). If the game is as good as it looks, I will buy the supporter's pack.

However, since I paid for EA and all (paying for EA is ALWAYS a gamble...) I feel like I'm entitled to ONE little snide remark. It's not even directed at the devs (they seem like cool dudes), but I must point this out: these guys made a similar thread on the RPGWatch forum. While this thread here is 26 pages full of praises and constructive criticism, the thread on RPG watch is mostly empty. Only devs and the occasional staffer are posting. Zero criticism, no suggestions, no nothing. I'm glad I chose the forum whose people actually put their money and effort where their mouths are. Even if that means being called a "faggot" and a "retard" from time to time...

Anyway, dear Overhype Studios, please take my money and have a good day.

 

[Eyestabber]

UPDATE: Tried my very first campaign. Didn't bother to THINK about my squad's composition and equipment ("HEY, it's NORMAL difficulty, nothing bad is going to happen, right!?"). Fought some bandits, won a phyrric victory. Claimed reward. Strolled outside the city, found another MUCH LARGER bandit group and got BUTCHERED.

10/10, would get butchered again. Mental note: buy moar shields, they seem REALLY cost-effective.

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, shields are almost mandatory for survival, at least in the beginning when you don't have walking tanks

 

[Agesilaus]

Anybody having trouble with castles/towers not being restocked? And even a perfectly safe city being labeled as impoverished?

I have a map where the castle is safe and sound down a little trail by itself, and it has safe roads connecting it to a city and a couple of towns. Yet, it's totally unstocked and labeled as almost abandoned. Is there anything I can do to improve the castle, because it's tough to get the better armour now. I've cleared away all the enemy encampments in the vicinity long ago.


Also, the tier 3 skill that let's you attack until you're out of fatigue is amazing with the right setup. Being able to throw four javelins in a single turn is lethal, and for a spot of comedy try punching someone to death this way, it's insane. I was able to break a brand new dagger in one turn, with high enough melee skill you might be able to just use the special ability to kill people in one turn and get a brand new set of armour.

I want to combine it with a couple of trumpet men so that I can replenish fatigue and do it every turn.

 

[Eyestabber]

Yeah, shields are almost mandatory for survival, at least in the beginning when you don't have walking tanks

I like my 2-handed-sword guy. Killing 3 bandits on a single swipe made me giggle like a little girl. This game is looking like all around...

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, shields are almost mandatory for survival, at least in the beginning when you don't have walking tanks

I like my 2-handed-sword guy. Killing 3 bandits on a single swipe made me giggle like a little girl. This game is looking like all around...

2-handers are awesome, but I'm so damn unlucky with them. They might kill one, but then they always perish in the most brutal fashion
Now I'm playing it safe so Hugo number 46 will stay alive

 

[Lucky]

I can't help but to try and two-hand, even when it's a bad idea. It just does so much damage. It's basically become a rite of passage to separate the worthwhile recruits from the useless - give them a giant axe and see if they survive the battle. I've found though, that the key with them early on is that you only want them to engage multiple opponents when you're going to use wide swings, or if it's a swordmaster with the Nimble perk. Otherwise the enemy will focus fire on them and quickly kill them. With greatswords, a good trick is to wait for the lines to get established, then flank their lines so that your merc is fighting one guy, but has two lined up. Then you can use split attack without as much fear of missing.

Spent most of the night trying stuff out. I'm liking what I see so far.

I'll need to get a bit more familiar with everything before I can start giving feedback on combat. (Except swords have been underwhelming so far. And Raapys (woodcutter, dexterous, greataxe) killed 8 zomgies in 8 turns, standing on high ground and oneshotting them as they lumbered up to him).

One thing I did notice though is the hiring UI could use some work. At the very least, it'd be nice if the tooltips saying what stats a profession gives were visible on the hiring screen. I made do with tabbing out to a wiki, but it seems like such a small fix to add. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on the hidden traits yet. I hired a hedge knight for nearly all my cash, and he turned out to be fat+drunk+dastardly. It's a bit of a bummer to get multiple negatraits on a new dude. At least I could take his gear and sacrifice him in the meatgrinder. Limiting the # of negatraits or giving a better heads-up that they're there would be nice.

Atm I try to run a battle line wher eevery other battlebro is a spearman for the knockback thingie. In between I have hammers/axes with a couple of crossbowmen hovering around the flanks. One thing I noticed is that sometimes enemies will jump right past the spear defese thing. If it misses or something happens so it doens't go off, it won't go off for the rest of that turn. I kind of wish there was better feedback on what's going on there.

Swords are better against unarmoured opponents, so they’ll see more use once the planned enemies with more health than armour get introduced. You’ll still find some pretty useful ones though.

A tweak that I’d like to see is that background strengths and weaknesses get slightly randomised. That way you’ll be less inclined to always pick the same good ones. I’ve actually found though, that negative traits aren’t as big of a deal as you might fear when you first see them. The merc his actual stats, levels, perks and gear are way more important.

Spearwall only works as long as your zone of control is free of enemies. The tooltip notes that this is the only way to start it, but it might be good to make it a bit clearer that that’s the only way for it to keep working, too.

Anybody having trouble with castles/towers not being restocked? And even a perfectly safe city being labeled as impoverished?

I have a map where the castle is safe and sound down a little trail by itself, and it has safe roads connecting it to a city and a couple of towns. Yet, it's totally unstocked and labeled as almost abandoned. Is there anything I can do to improve the castle, because it's tough to get the better armour now. I've cleared away all the enemy encampments in the vicinity long ago.

Caravans are what matters when it comes to wealth and stock. Are those arriving safely? Maybe you could try escorting one to see whether it get intercepted.

 

[eric__s]

Been playing for like 10 minutes and this game already rules. Holy shit.

 

[Ulminati]

That... Actually makes a lot of sense. I had just assumed that the no adjacent enemies limitation was to start using the spear wall. From a purely UI perspective, I'd have liked some kind of persistent marker on units in riposte, spear wall etc. You get it with shield wall (although it can be a bit too subtle at times). Something like a small marker on the units base would be nice. It would require less mousing over. At the very least for your own Bros.

So will there be an option to turn bandit and raid those juicy caravans ourselves?

Re: swords, I've been pairing sword Bros up with hammer Bros. Hammer bro does armour crush. Sword bro does damage. But the combo fizzles when one of your Bros hits head and the other hits body

 

[Lucky]

That... Actually makes a lot of sense. I had just assumed that the no adjacent enemies limitation was to start using the spear wall. From a purely UI perspective, I'd have liked some kind of persistent marker on units in riposte, spear wall etc. You get it with shield wall (although it can be a bit too subtle at times). Something like a small marker on the units base would be nice. It would require less mousing over. At the very least for your own Bros.

So will there be an option to turn bandit and raid those juicy caravans ourselves?

Re: swords, I've been pairing sword Bros up with hammer Bros. Hammer bro does armour crush. Sword bro does damage. But the combo fizzles when one of your Bros hits head and the other hits body

They're planning on adding some minor animations, like with the shieldwall, to make it clear that you're using the spearwall and riposte. Only if they can make it look good though, so they might tweak the UI in some other way. The idea behind it is to keep the battlefield UI as clean as possible, which is also why the health-bars are toggable.

No turning bandit. They're fully focusing on the core mercenary experience for now, though you never know about expansions or mods. It's actually been a really big relieve to see them shoot down ideas like necromancer mode or building a kingdom. They're really cool, but would eat up time better spent on features that improve the gameplay. It shows that they have a core vision and the discipline to stick to it. That's a rare thing to see nowadays.


It's really bizarre that the games that I'm most excited for right now all have tiny development teams. By the rules of the industry, these games have no right to be this good. Yet the most fun I've had so far is with a game made by three guys in their spare time. The team gets larger when you add bug testers, the musicians and sser as the writer, but that's still pretty small for a game this solid.

 

[Ulminati]

Turning to bandrity when no lucrative contracts are available is part of the core mercenary experience.

It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to implement. Give your band a reputation with each city. Rep goes up a little when you complete contracts. (Up a lot for the city you did it in, moderately for neighbouring cities). Rep goes down when you break contract or murder civilians. Rep goes down enough, you can't get volunteers, goods become more expensive and guards may chase after you. Do missions elsewhere to slowly repair rep.

But eh... If they have a vision they'd like to implement, it shouldn't be compromised over what one guy on a forum says. Especially when they already have my money. It just seemed like regional/global reputation would make sense to have. And my band (The Battle Brofists) was running low on food after trekking through the wilds when some plump, puny caravan showed up. If I'd been allowed to turn bandit (hell, just let me trade with a moving caravan. clicking on it did nothing), my bros wouldn't have gone hungry and left.

 

[oscar]

I like how this game doesn't have perfect balance but instead everything has its own little niche and situations where it shines. A zweihander dude is probably going to be less consistent in sucking up and dealing out damage but those moments when he hacks down two guys in one swing or injures the the three guys in front of him you're glad as hell you gave him that instead of a more conservative spear and shield combo.