Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[zeitgeist]

 

[almondblight]

I too would prefer a taller base. Maybe something more like this (in terms of height):

But regardless, it's looking really nice.

 

[Crabcakes]

Hey guys,
nice stuff. Very cool that you are even mockupping on your own
While working on the new sockets I actually tried something quite similar to Zeitgeists version. For my taste its a bit too intrusive and dominant in the whole look.
But if my new sockets still don´t work out I´ll definitely continue in this direction. I´ll slowly work my way to the perfect socket step by step.
Almondblights Figures look nice as well and I would consider this look if we had fixed classes or characters. But because every character shows his exact gear and equipment, I´d rather keep the sockets a bit more subtle.

I´ll keep you updated!

Cheers

 

[Zed]

It's nice to see you iterating, in any case. I think the new metal base looks much better than the wooden. The new weapons looks good too - less abstract while still fitting the board pieces.
By the way, there's no such thing as "spamming art updates" in the Workshop -- any update in the workshop, even the slightest thing, is welcome!

 

[Crabcakes]

By the way, there's no such thing as "spamming art updates" in the Workshop -- any update in the workshop, even the slightest thing, is welcome!

Awesome
Here comes my stuff.
I´ll start with a schematic view of what layers the figures are composed of. Every Layer can be dynamically exchanged of course. When you change your equipment, or something gets damaged/destroyed in combat.
The little arrows indicate that there are a lot more variations of the layer.

 

[rapsdjff]

By the way, there's no such thing as "spamming art updates" in the Workshop -- any update in the workshop, even the slightest thing, is welcome!

In that case: We've posted a new article about our thought process on designing the combat system at our Devblog. It turned out to be somewhat of a general game design rant and much of it has already been covered in this thread, but it might be worth a look anyway if you're interested (or just bored). I've copied it here for your convenience:

How we designed the combat system for Battle Brothers
When coming up with the game design for Battle Brothers we instantly knew that the tactical combat will need a huge amount of attention. The tactical combat is where you put your tactics, your equipment and of course your battle hardened Brothers to the test. This core part of the game always has to be fun, and not a tedious chore you have to chew threw in order to progress in the game.

With this in mind we set some basic rules, or “mantras”, for the tactical combat design. I think these mantras can apply to many games and should, in some form or another, always be on your mind when designing your combat system.

Repetitivity
Is the combat system repetitive? Are there always similar enemies, similar surroundings and similar tactics?

To avoid this we took a couple of measures. First of all, the combat maps are completely procedurally generated. No two maps will ever feel the same, look the same or play the same (mind that procedural generation poses some challenges to designers and programmers, maybe we cover that issue in a later article). Secondly, there is a wide variety of terrain types like grassland, dense forest, swamps, roads and so on. Each terrain has different aspects to it like hindering sight, movement or combat abilities, that make fighting on it feel different. In the same vein, we have different height levels, and positioning on these means advantages and disadvantages when engaging an enemy on a different height level. Finally, there is a large variety of enemies each with unique skills, AI and combat behaviour.

These three factors interlock and multiply each other allowing for nearly unlimited combinations of map, terrain and enemies that the player has to adapt to without being able to use a single dominant strategy that fits every situation. This way the designers do not have to haul in crazy amounts of content to keep things spicy. Even with massive resources handcrafting all content is bound to produce repetitivity (compare the repetitive maps of XCOM:EU to the randomized maps of the original X-Com).

Linearity
Is there a dominant strategy or tactic that works best for the player in almost all situations?

If yes, then combat quickly becomes boring, dull and linear. The player just does the same in every battle, and that, for us, is the opposite of fun. This one is tricky. Once players start min-maxing the combat they will do everything to find dominant strategies and spread them to other players. The solution is to two-fold.
First, make sure that there is a variety of viable playstyles. This has to do with thorough balancing and playtesting and is just hard work. We want to make sure that each option, each weapon and piece of armor, brings something valuable and ideally unique to the player’s tactical repertoire, and that there is no piece of equipment that is just plain worse than another one in every situation. A linear equipment progression takes away choice from the player, because the answer is always obvious - but by applying pros and cons to the equipment, we want to enable the player to find for him or herself what works best in a given situation. For example, while heavy armor offers more protection than light armor, the wielder also becomes exhausted more quickly and unable to use more specialized skills in quick succession. Both heavy and light armor are valid choices, but they require different playstyles and are suited to different situations.

Secondly, put enemies in the game that counter dominant strategies so the player has to adapt (we call them “combo-breakers” internally). For example: Putting your armored and shield-bearing Battle Brothers in front and those with ranged weapons in the back, so that they are protected, is a common sense strategy that works well against basic enemies as long as you can avoid being flanked. Now imagine an enemy that exploits this exact strategy and turns it into a disadvantage for the player. A while ago we put in an enemy called “Withered Vampire” that uses his special ability “Dark Flight” to turn into a swarm of bats to basically teleport behind the front line and pick off isolated and weak targets - usually the player’s archers - one by one in close combat. The vampire, although not a weak enemy by any means, isn’t even that strong in terms of hitpoints or the amount of damage he does - a few good hits will kill him. What makes him so dangerous an opponent is by far and large that he challenges the dominant position of the frontline-backline strategy that works so well against other opponents, and that the player has to adapt tactics here or be punished. Now, imagine further that a vampire appears together with a few skeletons - again, the player has to adapt to find a strategy that counters both types of opponents at the same time as best as possible. Of course, this is just one example of how to use combo-breaker against certain strategies.

Difficulty
This is a pretty obvious but still important one. If combat is too easy it gets boring, if it is too difficult it quickly gets frustrating. A lot of balancing is required, from beginning to the end of the development cycle, until we’ll be satisfied that the challenge and progression feels right for the player. Yet, who exactly is the player? It could be anyone from a genre novice to a hardened veteran, and that’s why we’ll go with various difficulty levels for the final game. What we won’t do is inflate enemy hitpoints or just have them inflict more damage; that, to us, feels like lazy game design that more often than not doesn’t even make the game more difficult, but only more tedious and random. Instead, we think that more interesting ways to make things challenging for the advanced players are savegame restrictions (ironman), resource limitations (less money, less gear, etc), more enemies in encounters or late game enemies appearing earlier in the game, slower healing times for wounded Brothers and so forth. Turning off permadeath in the game will not be an option for us as it is an integral part of our gamedesign.

Realism / Plausibility
This mantra can be summed up in a simple sentence: “what makes sense in real life makes sense in the game”. Now of course, there are no undead trying to eat you alive in reality but we’re talking combat mechanics here. As everyone knows since Star Wars Episode 3, if you have the high ground you have an advantage, and conversely, fighting against someone on high ground gives you a disadvantage. Being on high ground also allows you to see futher (beyond obstacles that would otherwise block your view), and arrows will travel further as well if you’re shooting downhill. Trying to shoot someone in the second line will be difficult without hitting the guy standing in the first line - this can be both a handicap, if that guy happens to be one of your own, and something you can take advantage of: if you’re firing into a tight formation of enemies, chances are good you’ll hit someone. Attacking anyone from multiple sides will make it difficult for him to defend himself.

All these factors and more are already in the game and we hope that eventually the player will feel intuitively how the combat works without requiring him or her to study a lengthy manual or rely on intrusive UI for every little detail. So before putting any mechanic into the combat system, we always put it to the reality test. If the player does not get it, it produces frustration and forces the player out of his way to study some information instead of playing the game. This is also a very important aspect regarding immersion. An intuitively understandable combat system greatly helps with creating a dense and believable atmosphere.

Predictability
Is the outcome of a combat action perfectly predictable?

You can go either way on this one depending of what kind of game you are designing. The one extreme would be checkers where every action has a completely pre-determined result, without any randomness involved. The other would be a completely random diceroll that determines the outcome where you can never tell what will happen.
High predictability produces more of a puzzle game where you are trying to find the optimal solution for any given situation. This allows for a lot of mathematical minded gaming, of min-maxing and number comparison which can take away from what the game actually tries to portray (pseudo-medieval combat) in favour of exposing how the simulation works internally (numbers!). This is something we aren’t entirely comfortable with. With Battle Brothers we want a bit of both worlds. A certain amount of predictability to make planning ahead viable and to reduce frustration caused by random events completely outside of the player’s control, but mixed with some randomness (dice rolls) and incomplete information (hidden numbers) to create suspense, unexpected situations, to make the player feel very subjectively that an enemy is strong against any particular strategy instead of just going “omg! it has 9000 hitpoints!”, and finally, to keep players on their toes at all times.

Freedom of choice
Is the player forced to make certain decisions? How close does he have to stick to the rules?

As with the last point this is a decision where there is no wrong or right. We decided to go with a more open system allowing the player to experiment with certain playstyles as he or she likes. This is why we have no rigid classes for the Battle Brothers in the game. The active skills any Brother has at his disposal are determined by equipment. This way the player is free to experiment with any combination thereof - for example, going with an all ranged squad with no melee fighters. On the flipside, this also allows for the player to fail miserably. Yet, we want that kind of freedom in our game since it is all about YOU, the player, and how your story unfolds and not about something we made up and you have to “re-enact”. We embrace that failing at this game (and learning from your mistakes) is part of the gameplay, just like succeeding is. In this way, the game runs counter to some of the more recent game design philosophies of not having the player fail and always allowing him or her to progress. We are convinced that this grade of freedom allows for awesome and unique stories and a fresh feeling everytime you start a new game even if it means that the game is less accessible to players new to the genre.

 

[Crabcakes]

I prepped a very small overview of my icon painting style.
Here´s the basic painting process for that.
I start out with a pretty rough painting of the skill in 500×500 pixels size. The base layer is always black, so that the colors I use pop out more. You don´t need a lot of details here, it all comes down to colors and contrasts when you resize it to the final 48×48 pixels size. I go back and forth a lot to check if the icon is clearly readable and how it compares to the already existing icons.
When resizing I use “smart sharpen” with 35% and on top of that an +20 brightness +20 contrast action to give the icon some extra punch.
Cheers!

 

[Crabcakes]

I almost forgot, here´s a screenshot of the new sockets and weapon icons in action.
You may notice the orange tint of the screen. Thats because of the time of day and weather settings which may always be different.
Cheers!

 

[Unspeakable Horror]

Looks good. I like the new base.

 

[ASTRAL]

Perfect!

 

[rapsdjff]

We've posted a new article on our Devblog going more into detail about our combat mechanics. It goes like this:

In the last article we explored our underlying game design philosophy, or “mantras”, behind the tactical combat and set out the goals we wanted to achieve. Now lets see what mechanics we came up with.

Bear in mind that at this early stage everything is still subject to change. The combat already works fine, is fun and offers a wealth of tactical options the way it is – but that doesn’t mean we won’t improve on it as we continue to develop the game.

Character stats
All characters, Battle Brothers and enemies alike, have distinct character stats which heavily influence their performance in combat. If you haven’t already, you should read our earlier article about character stats (http://battlebrothersgame.com/character-stats/) prior to this one.

Turn Order
Battle Brothers uses an initiative-based system to determine the order in which combatants can act out their turns. There are no separate turns for the player and the AI to move all their characters at once, such as, for example, in Jagged Alliance. Instead, all characters, whether player or AI controlled, are sorted by their initiative and act in descending order, one after another. Initiative is calculated each round based on a character’s action points, their accumulated fatigue and the type of armor worn. Characters that are slower, more fatigued or wearing heavier armor generally act later in a round than those that are quick, fresh and lightly armored. Being able to land the first strike can be a big advantage in a combat situation, as you can imagine, so it can pay off to have some of your Battle Brothers equipped with light armor even later in the game. We decided to go with an initiative-based system like this because we felt that this better conveyed the feeling of a frantic and dynamic close combat than neatly separated turns would.

Visibility and Fog of War
At the start of a tactical battle, most of the map is covered in black and needs exploring. Characters have a limited view range, which is influenced by obstacles blocking line of sight, the level of elevation that the character is on and the type of helmet worn. While the player is able to see what all Battle Brothers are seeing, the individual Battle Brothers are still sometimes limited by what they personally can see. For example, to be able to make an aimed shot, the respective Battle Brother has to have a clear line of sight to his target. Hexes that aren’t currently visible to any Battle Brother are covered in the Fog of War (seen as grey and desaturated, as is common). The player can still see the terrain type and elevation of such tiles, but any enemy movement on it is concealed. The AI is limited by the view range of its characters in the same way, and it is well possible to hide from it or lure it into an ambush.

Terrain
Terrain differs in terms of the action points and fatigue it costs to traverse it. Some terrain also offers boni and mali directly applicable to combat. For example, as movement in swamp terrain is considerably slower, characters on swamp terrain also suffer from a malus to their melee defense stat. By luring enemies onto bad terrain, and making sure that your Battle Brothers are positioned on better terrain, you can give your troops a significant edge.

Elevation
Although the game is presented with two dimensional visuals, the battlefield has a third dimension to it: terrain elevation. Hills and hillocks can often be found on maps.

The level of elevation influences how far characters are able to see, with high elevation offering increased view range and allowing to see beyond obstacles which on lower elevation would block a character’s line of sight. Higher elevation also means additional range for ranged weapons when shooting downhill. Elevation is important for melee engagements as well: attacking from high ground gives an attack bonus, and makes it more likely to hit an opponent’s head, whereas attacking from low ground gives an attack malus and makes it less likely to hit an opponent’s head. Using terrain elevation is an important tactical tool; archers are best placed on high ground, and a smaller force placed on a hill may well be able to defend it against a larger force that has to fight a literal up-hill battle.

Zone of Control
A Zone of Control is the area of one hex around any character equipped with a melee weapon, and a key concept in our tactical combat system. Any character attempting to leave a Zone of Control will suffer a free attack (basically an Attack of Opportunity, if you're familiar with D&D) from whoever owns that zone. If the attack connects, the character is prevented from leaving the hex but still pays action points and fatigue for the movement attempt. If the attack misses, the character manages to slip out of the Zone of Control. A character can be in more than one Zone of Control at the same time – and attempting to evade multiple free attacks in order to move out of melee range can often prove deadly.

With the Zone of Control we establish that characters can lock each other in melee and can’t easily disengage. Once engaged in melee, character’s can’t maneuver freely to improve their position anymore – they have to account for their opponent in front of them, attempting to land a good hit at every opportunity. When holding narrow passes, other characters can’t just run by – they can attempt to, but as they cross the Zone of Control, they risk being cut down in the process.

Some of the active skills we have in the game also work closely with the Zone of Control mechanics. For example, the attack skills of some ranged weapons can’t be used while in any enemy Zone of Control (i.e. being engaged in melee range), as any opponent would be quick to strike you down as you attempted to draw your bow. Of course, this can be used by the player as well to shut down enemy archers without having to kill them. On the other hand, the “Spearwall” skill, once enabled, has the Battle Brother using it attempt to strike any opponent attempting to enter his Zone of Control and prevent them from doing so, as opposed to only strike when an opponent attempts to leave the Zone of Control.

Morale
Characters are subject to morale which fluctuates based on how the battle unfolds both for them personally and for their faction. Factors that will change a character’s morale include: slaying an enemy, seeing an enemy be slain by an ally, seeing an ally fall, seeing an ally flee, being wounded and being outnumbered. With allies fleeing having an adverse effect on the morale of others, morale failure can be contagious; once the first character panics and flees, others have an increased chance to follow suit, which in turn will lead to an even higher probability of others fleeing as well.

At the start of each character’s turn, if a character’s current morale is lower than their base morale, a morale check is performed (by rolling dice). If a morale check fails, that character is considered wavering. If another morale check fails the turn after, the character will panic and flee, trying to get as far away from any known enemy as possible outside of control of the player. The character may eventually rally, but only if there is no enemy in the direct vicinity.

Morale affects most enemies just as it affects Battle Brothers – although some enemies, like Undead, are immune to its effects. Certain rare skills, such as of powerful enemies or rare artifacts, can directly challenge and lower the morale of targets – potentially having them flee without the need for any direct confrontation.

Flanking? Overwhelming!
Battle Brothers does not have a Flanking mechanic per se. We toyed around with the idea, but two points irked out: A combatant in real life can turn around in a split second, so determining that any combatant would be attacked from the back only for the fact that he couldn’t turn around because it isn’t his turn currently seemed very artificial. Second, it would require a very clear indicator of what direction any character is currently looking at – in other words, we would have needed character busts for every one of six possible directions. Sadly, our resources are very limited, and we’d rather spend them on more important things.

What we came up with instead is the Overwhelm mechanic. The more individual characters attack any defending character in close combat within a single round, the easier it gets for them to score a hit. Or in other words: We’re granted a to-hit bonus for each character that attacked our target previous to us in the current round. This way we simulate the difficulty of defending against multiple opponents that attack from multiple sides without the need for any fixed character headings.

Shields
Characters equipped with shields have moderately increased defense against both melee and ranged attacks, or in other words, they have a reduced chance of being hit. They also gain access to the “Shieldwall” active skill – when using it, their defense is further increased by a significant amount. In addition, they gain a small boost to their defense for any ally adjacent who also uses the “Shieldwall” skill, simulating that several combatants can interlock their shields to form a sturdy shieldwall, viking style. Since to make full use of a shield, an active skill has to be used, the player (and for that matter, the AI) has to balance whether passing on an additional attack in favor of a defensive skill is the right move in the current situation, or whether going full-on offensive might be the better choice.

Shields, especially with their active skill, are a powerful tool in melee battle – but there is a way to get rid of them. Certain weapons, like all kinds of axes, grant their wielder a “Split Shield” skill. Depending on the type of shield and weapon used, a few hits with this skill can make short work of any shield. Still, as with the “Shieldwall” skill, any attacker has to balance whether trying to destroy the shield now in order to make any further attack easier to hit with is worth it, or whether it is a better option just trying to pummel the defender with attacks in the hopes of one of those attacks getting through. As with any combat mechanic, this applies to both the player and the AI – so sending a Battle Brother with a shield against an axe-wearing skeleton could well mean that you’re about to have one shield less.

Status Effects
Characters can have any number of status effects depending on their equipment, the terrain they stand on and attacks they suffer. For example, a character can be stunned after being hit by a blunt weapon – while being stunned, the character will be unable to act on his turn (but will still attempt to defend itself when attacked).

Hitzones
There are two hitzones that each attack can hit: body and head. It is much more likely for any attack to hit the body, but a hit to the head does increased damage. In fact, a hit to the head is somewhat akin to a critical hit in other games, but we flattened the curve; it is more likely to hit the head than do a critical hit in other games, but conversely the damage increase isn’t as great as in other games. In addition, since there are separate armor pools for body and head, the player can choose to equip Battle Brothers with helmets to protect against hits to the head. Some weapons and some skills also make it more likely to score a hit to the head, so this is something the player can somewhat control and that isn’t entirely random.

Armor and Hitpoints
Hitpoints are modeled pretty straight forward – there is a single pool of hitpoints, and if that ever reached zero, the character dies. There are two pools of armor points (for body and head). On an incoming hit, the respective armorpool gets reduced until it reaches zero, at which point the armor is discarded and useless for the remainder of the combat. Only then can hitpoints be lost. In other words: Armor works as a kind of extra hitpoint buffer divided into two hitzones.

Attacking
Attacking an opponent in Battle Brothers always means using a skill – there is no anonymous basic attack. Since active skills are determined by the equipment worn there is some variety on what skills individual characters have at their disposal.

Using the one-handed longsword as an example, the wielder is granted the “Slash” and “Riposte” skills. “Slash” is a basic attack dealing average damage to a single target with an above-average to-hit chance. Its action point and fatigue cost are so that any character can perform at least one slash a turn, no matter how fatigued they are. Normally, a Battle Brother can perform “Slash” two times a turn, or one “Slash” and one “Riposte”. “Riposte” on the other hand, is a more specialized skill. When activated, no target needs to be selected, but the character will for one round automatically perform a counter-attack on any opponent that attempts to attack him and misses. With “Riposte”, a character can potentially do much more damage than with a single “Slash” – but this comes at a price; any opponent would first have the chance to hit that character, and the fatigue cost is substantially higher, so that “Riposte” can only be used a few times in succession. With “Riposte”, our goal was to capture the sword-fencing idea of feints and counter-attacks in a more defensive skill. Other weapons have more offense-oriented special skills – such as the “Split Shield” skill of axes which you already learned about. While one-handed weapons allow for two attacks a turn, heavy two-handed weapons only allow for one – but one that will definitely be felt if it connects.

The skills, and our thoughts on developing them, are a complex topic on their own and perhaps warrant their own future article.

 

[Eyeball]

I still hate the cut-off-at-chest-height character design but goddamn your drawing style is excellent.

 

[Crabcakes]

Thanks a bunch, man

 

[Vagiel]

I am really impressed by what I hear so far and looking forward to see more. Great work so far guys keep it up!

 

[Crabcakes]

Hey all,
just a little example of how our environment layering works. The challenge is, that all terrain tiles have to be exchangeable with each other, so that we can freely and procedually generate our maps.
This is how it works

Cheers!

 

[felipepepe]

Do the sockets have any meaning besides Team A & B?

Also, your art is fantastic and you should submit it to Bee so we can use as avatars in teh Codex. :3

 

[Crabcakes]

Hi Felipepepe,
each "faction" has their own sockets. Right now this means player faction and undead. The three next factions will be Orcs&Goblins, Cultists&Demons and Beasts.
Thanks for the compliment on the art, but I couldnt find out what exactly "Bee" is, google gets spammed with those little insects. Otherwise I´d be very happy to upload the avatars

Cheers!

 

[zeitgeist]

Thanks for the compliment on the art, but I couldnt find out what exactly "Bee" is, google gets spammed with those little insects. Otherwise I´d be very happy to upload the avatars

Cheers!

Crooked Bee

 

[Crabcakes]

Ah okay
I´m in contact with him. I´ll try to prepare the graphics today some time.
Until then have a look at the Necromancer!
This guy is not very tough and doesnt deal a lot of damage, but he can be a real pest. He revives all kinds of slain undead (and slain battle brothers as well). So be sure to get rid of him quickly, or the enemies will stack up real quick. On top of that he´s always accompanied by a big and mean skeleton knight bodyguard.

Cheers!

 

[RedScum]

This looks really good

 

[Crabcakes]

Thanks for the two thumbs up

Uh Oh:

 

[Midair]

Have you considered making the sockets for player and enemy units different colors? Some subtle coloring would make the battlefield more readable at a glance and could also reduce the buried look by adding more contrast between the sockets and the background.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Oh man, this thing looks amazing. Keep up the good work! Gotta love the art direction and how it plays so far.
Few questions from me:
1) We've seen a lot of combat layer. How about strategic one? You plan any role-playing elements like conversations or C&C stuff? How deep it will be?
2) How moddable the game is going to be? (Yeah, I know. I'm always asking that.)
3) Have you thought about making your "own" lad in addition to hiring, just like in Jagged Alliance 2?
4) How about fluffy stuff like randomised short-character bios, so you can attach yourself more to these poor fellas. Face and equipment is one thing, but personally I love little details like the name of kingdom/city they came from, who were they before becoming warriors and other "stupid" stuff. Silly me!
5) Maybe some kind of "feat" system, where random events can cause specific characters earn feats or flaws (eg. drunkard) which affect their stats or have other effects?

Oh lord, I've got so many ideas and questions.

 

[The_scorpion]

Looks fantastic so far


i don't like the initiative-based turn System though. It's a sure way to kill 50% of the "tactics" aspect you had in the game. Simulating that frantic battle Comes with the Price of overly rigid and limited tactical Options.

 

[rapsdjff]

Oh man, this thing looks amazing. Keep up the good work! Gotta love the art direction and how it plays so far..

Thanks, we appreciate your enthusiasm!

1) We've seen a lot of combat layer. How about strategic one? You plan any role-playing elements like conversations or C&C stuff? How deep it will be?

We switched our focus to developing the strategic layer recently but it's still a bit too soon for us to show anything. At this point we're still experimenting with the visuals and gameplay possibilities.

The strategic layer won't be as deep as in a purely strategic game, of course, but we aim to make it a respectable part of the game that can stand on its own feet. It won't just be filler between tactical encounters, but something that requires formulating its own strategies to succeed at. I don't want to go into too much detail until we finalized our design, but among other things the player will have access to a sort of "mobile base" which can be customized in a variety of ways. It's important to us to have a strong connection between the two layers, and so decisions in either layer will also affect the other.

We'll have role-playing elements primarily in the way of character development; individual Battle Brothers can gain experience, sustain lasting injuries, level up and gain new feats. C&C is important to us, and to me personally, as I can't stand static maps that make me feel that whatever I do as the player doesn't really change anything. However, the C&C we're going to have will emerge from gameplay and not be scripted or involve moral dilemmas cleverly written by us. For example, not helping a town under siege because you'd rather pursue some other goal (like obtaining that legendary artifact that promises to greatly help your war effort in the long run, let's say) will have consequences for your game. Consequences that don't come back to haunt you with a "you remember that time when..?" revelation, but such as the town simply being razed and no longer available as a place of commerce and safety in the region. Things that make sense intuitively and have a lasting impact in the game world. Things that have you make strategic decisions, as it should be.

As for actual conversations - probably not. None of us is a writer or a native English speaker, and we'd rather focus on what we can do well than force badly written dialog into our game. We will do our best to have some atmospheric descriptions for locations, encounters, items and such, though.

2) How moddable the game is going to be? (Yeah, I know. I'm always asking that.)

While the engine is written in C++, most of the actual gameplay is scripted. In theory, anything from a small mod changing some stats to a total conversion could be modded via scripts. However, the exact amount of modding support (providing an API beyond our own immediate needs, writing documentation, updating our tools to be usable by anyone, etc) that we'll provide is largely dependent on community demand and, sadly, financial incentive. Our resources are quite limited and our priority is to our core game.

3) Have you thought about making your "own" lad in addition to hiring, just like in Jagged Alliance 2?

Not in the way of Jagged Alliance 2, no. For the time being, people can shape their own lad by hiring a fresh recruit and changing his name and appearance. They should be aware though that the average life expectancy of some random Battle Brother isn't necessarily very high

4) How about fluffy stuff like randomised short-character bios, so you can attach yourself more to these poor fellas. Face and equipment is one thing, but personally I love little details like the name of kingdom/city they came from, who were they before becoming warriors and other "stupid" stuff. Silly me!

Definately! We already have plans for short randomized character bios that continue to grow as Battle Brothers accomplish special feats (like slaying an especially dangerous enemy, being the sole survivor of a battle, etc).

5) Maybe some kind of "feat" system, where random events can cause specific characters earn feats or flaws (eg. drunkard) which affect their stats or have other effects?

Also definately! We already have Battle Brothers come with up to 2 random feats like being athletic, short-sighted, dumb, etc, that help to define each individual's character and stats. We'd also like especially prolific Battle Brothers to be rewarded with additional feats based on what they accomplished (e.g. slaying a hundred undead and becoming unbreakable when fighting them), but that hasn't made its way into the game yet.

Oh lord, I've got so many ideas and questions.

Keep 'em coming!