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Goddamn does the Woodsman's Axe suck. It's a great feeling when you get to bin it for a real two-hander.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 17:24 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 00:10 |
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KittyEmpress posted:So partly because of the thread and partly because of the streams of it, I decided to buy this. I did a few contracts to travel around but no fighting. Got to 5 guys, got them all shields without any fighting besides the opening ones for the tutorial and went to do a dog hunting mission. I walk into the mission and it is 9 dire wolves at once. In my experience playing, getting as much combat as possible early on is essential - especially "easy" missions, because your dudes need XP immediately.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 17:32 |
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KittyEmpress posted:So partly because of the thread and partly because of the streams of it, I decided to buy this. I did a few contracts to travel around but no fighting. Got to 5 guys, got them all shields without any fighting besides the opening ones for the tutorial and went to do a dog hunting mission. I walk into the mission and it is 9 dire wolves at once. I'm a little past where Jade is time wise. Oh 2 skull mission, " go retrieve BLA" descent money lets go kill the bandits. 19 zombies O.O
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 18:19 |
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So why didn't you use shield bash against the shield-walled guys in the first video
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 22:04 |
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shalafi4 posted:I'm a little past where Jade is time wise. Oh 2 skull mission, " go retrieve BLA" descent money lets go kill the bandits. Armored zombies or unarmored zombies? Unarmored zombies are just sacks of EXP waiting to be opened, only good for being meatshields.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 22:28 |
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golden bubble posted:Armored zombies or unarmored zombies? Unarmored zombies are just sacks of EXP waiting to be opened, only good for being meatshields. They can tire your guys out a bit.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 22:30 |
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golden bubble posted:Armored zombies or unarmored zombies? Unarmored zombies are just sacks of EXP waiting to be opened, only good for being meatshields. they almost all had armor (not all had weapons though)
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 22:56 |
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Also enough armored zombies will gently caress with your morale.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 23:32 |
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Hunt11 posted:Also enough armored zombies will gently caress with your morale. You really want someone with Rally and good resolve for fighting undead.
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# ? Sep 25, 2017 23:42 |
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Shieldwall + Riposte sounds pretty broken, as long as you can keep the stamina up for it.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 02:45 |
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Glazius posted:Shieldwall + Riposte sounds pretty broken, as long as you can keep the stamina up for it. You can only ever really keep it up for like, maybe 2 turns or so, unless you've got a massive beast with nothing but stamina levels under his belt, so it evens out.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 03:30 |
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Stamina will always run out. You only regain 15 stamina a turn. To put that into context swinging a dagger is 7, a sword is 10, and some of the heavier weapons are 15. So 2 melee attack uses up most of the stamina you get a turn. Moving is 4stamina a hex on normal terrain. Just normal movement and attacks will tire people out eventually. Shield wall is 20, riposte is 25. Most special actions are 20+. You will absolutely never have the stamina needed to keep up these sorts of actions for very long. When a guy shield wall and ripostes I just look at that as a turn he spent not attacking, burning a ton of stamina and I'll either hit someone else if possible or do nothing for a turn and make the stamina +/- exchange that more lopsided in my favor for the next round.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 08:36 |
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There are niche situations where you can use SW+Riposte to good effect but they are few and far between. The AI is smart enough not to go after the guy with the shield up if they are in range of someone with the shield down. A lone duelist with riposte, avoidance skills and a decent sword makes for OK riposting. You have to really be able to get 2 procs of it at least to make it worth just doing a normal slash though.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 08:41 |
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Glazius posted:Shieldwall + Riposte sounds pretty broken, as long as you can keep the stamina up for it. The enemy tends to aim for your easier to stab brothers, so a guy with shieldwall and riposte next to a "normal" bro is only going to funnel hits into your other guy. EDIT: What he said.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 09:07 |
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Riposte is a good build for late game brothers when they have sufficient skills and armour to run them out on their own protecting your flank against lots of enemies and get them surrounded to maximise the number of hits they get in.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 10:42 |
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Bought this thanks to this LP, really enjoying it and the game so far - thanks! How do I unlock the noble house contracts? I've had a few seeds now where contracts seem to be extremely scarce and I've scraped to survive with hardly any money to spare.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 13:58 |
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lenoon posted:Bought this thanks to this LP, really enjoying it and the game so far - thanks! You'll eventually get an ambition to get famous enough to get hired by nobles.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 14:06 |
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lenoon posted:Bought this thanks to this LP, really enjoying it and the game so far - thanks! You need to choose the ambition to get noticed by them, and then get enough renown to fulfill the ambition. I have no idea why you need the ambition, and not just have the required renown.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 14:08 |
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You need to believe in yourself.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 14:36 |
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One more person who bought BB thanks to all these Let's Plays. Some highlights include: - Getting one-hit-killed on the very first attack made against one of my brothers ever - Saving up thousands of gold to hire a Swordmaster, who has the worst resolve in the company and gets an event that further reduces it by half immediately - A brother in the shieldwall dying to six direwolf body bites in a row (after the battle I 'found' his shield and helmet in perfect condition) - ~100 uneaten food rotting on a weeklong caravan escort across the continent Logged about 15 hours, loving it so far!
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 15:19 |
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BB is the kind of game where you just gotta embrace poo poo not going to plan occasionally.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 15:55 |
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Night10194 posted:BB is the kind of game where you just gotta embrace poo poo not going to plan occasionally. A statement that applies to both battle brothers and blood bowl.
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# ? Sep 26, 2017 17:00 |
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gently caress me I need to check the New LPs thread more often, I only just now found this. Battle Brothers is one of my favourite games in recent years, such a hidden little gem. Glad to see a LP superstar like Jade picking it up. Now to actually read the thread. Be still my racing heart!
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# ? Oct 1, 2017 17:50 |
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I gamble on brothers too/more often than others, I guess, and am all too willing to hire from whatever background if I'm down a man and something catches my eye. I'll even invest in cripples. 45 gold to hire? gently caress it, that's like, a random piece of garbage I found on the ground. OH HELLO 3 stars in ranged and 2 in ranged defense. Looks like Cripple is a secret all star. The super expensive backgrounds often have good starting stats, but I'm usually wary about the low-leveled versions of them, since their stats at level 1 aren't -too- much better, and as near as I can tell, unlike starting stats and pay, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between stars and pay. So if I'm OK at hiring level 1, I'll prioritize by "This dude has equipment" and "gently caress it, he's super cheap, worst case scenario is I fire him"
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# ? Oct 1, 2017 21:12 |
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Watch out for that sort of situation thoug. For example a Witchhunter is a good early to mid ranged pick up most of the time. A hunternis a good mid to late ranged of the same. Now you may get a WH with 3 stars in ragnged but if the hunter only had 2 stars they will typically still have about 10 more based points which is still 3 level ups away from the witch hunter to catch up with.
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# ? Oct 3, 2017 03:23 |
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By my experience witch hunters will usually have a somewhat lower ranged skill than poachers or hunters, although still way better than some rando farmhand. They seem to compensate by usually having pretty decent melee skill as well though, so they're pretty versatile. Also they come with a swank-rear end hat, which is a nice bonus.
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# ? Oct 3, 2017 05:40 |
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Just using them of as an example of where backgrounds make a big difference despite not lookingnluke that big of one.
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# ? Oct 3, 2017 06:20 |
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Witchhunters make really good sergeants since they have high resolve rolls and ok ranged stats (I like ranged sergeants since shouting at the rest of the company requires just as much fatigue as fighting for some reason, which synergises well with sitting in the back and being able to run around to the parts of the line that are wavering)Gridlocked posted:Watch out for that sort of situation thoug. For example a Witchhunter is a good early to mid ranged pick up most of the time. A hunternis a good mid to late ranged of the same. Now you may get a WH with 3 stars in ragnged but if the hunter only had 2 stars they will typically still have about 10 more based points which is still 3 level ups away from the witch hunter to catch up with. Assuming you are planning long term to have your guys survive to level 11 (easier with ranged bros) the 3 star guy is clearly the better choice here, although you can't tell in advance. A lot of the choice in hiring depends on your own win condition for the game - whether you plan to retire peacefully in the late game, or grind for 300 days to get sweet loot and create a team of supermen. In the former case you can kind of hire whoever you want as soon as resources permit, since your starting guys will probably end around max level and even a useless farmer guy at max level is probably better than a newly hired low level knight. In the latter case obviously you want to shop around and roll as many times as you can for both good starting stats and stars. ModernMajorGeneral fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Oct 3, 2017 |
# ? Oct 3, 2017 14:13 |
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The Black Parade, days 14-19 Last time we left off the company was in Ivendorf, a bit low on funds and needing work. I don't like keeping less than a thousand crowns in reserve and at the moment the company is at 961. The reason I like to keep a bit of a bank, and the minimum level I like to keep will go up as we progress, is because you never know what you may find or or how long it'll be until you find something else that pays, and you are constantly bleeding money on upkeep. I think the daily wages are about 160 a day now so I have roughly five days of money to pay the men, but I only have 3 days of food, so you get the idea. I'm constantly in need of acquiring more income. Anyway, like I said, Ivendorf doesn't have work for us so it's time we move on. We're in the same spot we were last time around; I could head south west and see if Westerholz or Kornstadt have jobs again or I can head off somewhere new. I choose somewhere new. Turmwacht is just a short march north of Ivendorf and we've never been there before. It looks like a wooden castle, a motte-and-bailey with a few large clusters of houses around it nestled between the mountains as well as an ore smelter and a blast furnace so we'll probably find good weapons and armor there. Turmwacht is kind of neat to me. I like the way the game generates maps and where it puts things. Turmwacht here looks like it was maybe once a forest town, like the others we've seen for hunting in the woods to it's west. Or maybe it was established for mining the mountains, it's got the facilities for that. But then it's a Motte and not a city, so it's military in nature so maybe it was built to hold the path between the mountains from brigands or orcs or whatever else may be in the wilderness. Once inside the city though, it's far less impressive than I thought it would be. Despite the ore smelter and blast furnace there isn't an armorer or weapon smith to make use of the high grade metals the smelter or furnace could provide. Really strange. I thought the presence of the smelter and furnace guaranteed the city would have an armorer and weapon smith. Well, guess I'm still learning too. The one thing the city does have though is a kennel. Kennels sell dogs, as you might expect. They come in two flavors, regular, and lightly armored. Dogs can be useful to release upon fleeing enemies if you want to run them down, but the AI for them isn't very bright and most of the time dogs just get themselves killed against any moderately capable fighter that isn't trying to flee. I would like dogs if I could control them once released, but you can't do that, the AI controls them and they just charge the closest target. If I could control them or at least set a specific target for them then I could make much better use of them. I'd release them on the flanks and have them run around the melee lines and try to chew up archers, for example. Sadly that's not really possible so I mostly ignore wardogs. Turmwacht holds a job contract, but it's offered by the nobles and we still haven't gotten to their level yet. Disappointing, but we'll get there soon. Without work for us here, it's time to move on, but where? Not wanting to retread lands we were just at I continue the adventure north. The three cities to the north ought to hold some opportunity and coin for us. I decide to start at Helviktorn, and being that the road there would take us south and around past Ivendorf and Eichendorf again we're going straight north through the woods and stuff. Adventure! . . . Error, adventure not found. The only thing I saw on the way here was some faded footprints. So there may have been something in the woods, but I never actually got to see what it might have been. Helviktron is pretty much the same as Turmwacht, a motte-and-bailey without much going on for it and a nobles contract that we can't accept yet. Great... I was about to leave this place when I figured I'd check the local recruits and see if there was anything here. Mostly I'm looking for a hunter or bowyer because I want a few more archers in the company. I'm not really sure what compelled me to pay attention to Ortwin here. Usually deserters aren't known for their ranged skill but he stood there with bow in hand and seemed confident of his abilities. His upfront cost was pretty cheap too and I could just afford to hire him. You may remember me opening this with how I had 960 crowns and we haven't earned anymore yet, so 555 is going to cost us most of the crowns I have left. Still, I hired Ortwin and sold off a lot of the little extra crap I'd been carrying with us. A few militia spears for 30 crowns each, some hatchets, a few cloth hoods, you get the idea. It didn't amount to much but it helped cover the hiring cost. Well I am glad I hired Ortwin! I mean Mojangles. Despite starting with a bow, he kind of sucks at ranged weapons with only 39 skill. However he starts with 66 melee and three stars in it. Score! Also he has a star in melee defense. His resolve is a bit low, but that is to be expected with deserters and doesn't really dampen how awesome he might turn out. With that attack value and starting with 9 defense and a star in it Mojangles is going to have a two handed weapon at some point. Not right now, maybe after a few levels, and also because I sold the woodsman's axe to raise a bit of cash. Hiring Mojangles also completes our ambition to get the company to full strength. We can, and will, hire more men for the company but we can only field 12 in battle at a time. Bringing as many men to a fight as we can offers obvious benefit so it's good to be at full strength. Despite the flavor text there, simply having 12 men isn't enough to get the nobles to hire us. There will be another ambition for that and we're likely to see it soon. In any case we still need work and we're up in the north. While Helviktron couldn't offer us any work Eidsvik and Hornborg look promising. Hornburg looks like a pretty massive castle and city. It's got an ore smelter and blast furnace for weapons and armor, its got a barracks and a stone watchtower for guards, this place can host a proper army or two. Eidsvik is a little smaller but it has some interesting economic buildings, such as a surface iron vein which I imagine ships its iron right to Hornburg, a pig farm so the locals will be well accustomed to eating pork, a gatherers hut to supply the market with roots, berries, and other edible things, and something that's in a bit of ruins. Eidsvik is closer and Hornburg is more likely to have a noble contract we can't accept yet, so we march to Eidsvik. Eidsvik isn't a bad place, a little smaller than I first thought it'd be but it still has a tavern and a temple. The keen eyed among you may notice I am down to 35 crowns and that is really not enough. I lucked out on Mojangles but now I need work quickly. This is also a rare time I'd try to haggle for payment up front. I have about 20 hours at this point until the men demand their daily payment so I am hoping for a quick job to make sure I don't short the men. Thankfully Eidsvik has two jobs for us. First I drop by the tavern just to listen to a rumor or two. This rumor hints that there is a location somewhere to the east of the town. Sometimes the rumors will tell you where rare or unique items might be found. This some doesn't mention anything like a rare and shiny weapon or anything so it's likely just a mundane enemy camp, but that's still somewhere I can go to plunder some treasure. Anyway, back to the paying jobs. I am really starting to wonder what the major religion of this world is, because it's starting to sound a lot like witchcraft and poo poo. Blood Vial of the Holy Mother... Yeah, this sounds really weird. Whatever, it pays 610 crowns which is pretty good. Unfortunately I failed to talk Harald the Wise into paying me some of the reward upfront. That's kind of a problem because I need at least 160ish crowns before mid-day tomorrow to pay the men. For this kind of mission though, I think I'll be alright. March out to a place, have a fight, march back, no problem. Oh, well poo poo. That is a bit farther away than I was hoping for and also over tundra. Tundra is going to slow this down a bit and now I feel less confident in turning this mission around in time to make payday. But it's not like I have any choice. So eastward through the tundra we go. Nothing interesting to report on the walk over other than it took us all night to get here and now I am certain I'm not getting back to town before mid-day. I am now hoping whatever I have to fight here drops enough crowns to cover the days wages. Huh, well that was easy. Really expected to get into a fight here. If not right away than definitely from taking the sword. But nope. Mission accomplished, we can go home now. The ancient sword turns out to be slightly better than a falchion. It's min/max damage numbers are just very slightly better, but the real selling point is that it is 10% more effective vs armor than a falchion. Other than those two things its identical. It's covered in strange ornamentation's, but those offer no tactical advantage what so ever, unless we are planning on selling it to a collector or historian. Fleshnolk takes the ancient sword and passes his falchion on down to Mojangles. Now, we could head back to town. We have done what the contract asked of us. But I'm still short on crowns and the Dark Shrouds Coven is still there on the world map. I can attack the coven and fight it's occupants for loot and treasure, which is exactly my plan. Well gently caress. I'm not exactly excited to be fighting roman legionary skeletons again but we need the money. Onward men, to the bone zone! Battle at the Dark Shrouds Coven Grizzwoldicus almost died and Zeniel got beat up but hey, no deaths, always a good outcome. The bad news is that the skeletons didn't have any crowns on them. That's going to be a problem. However they did have some silver jewelry and a golden chalice and that means a much better payday when we get back to town. Selling this silver and gold ought to earn us double what the actual job payed. Lastly Zeniel picks up Fast Adaptation from leveling up after the fight. During the march back to town I decide it's to set another goal for the company. The only choice left to us at this point is to raise a grand battle standard for the Black Parade. A banner is useful for keeping morale steady in combat. We'll worry about it more later, but once I have the banner we're going to want a dedicated banner man. Someone with high resolve who will inspire us with their shiny pole, who will flap directions to us in battle. Truly they will be an inspiration unto greatness. The trip home is uneventful save the circumstance I'd been warning about the entire time. Despite my protests of 'we have a fucken solid gold chalice to sell when we get back' the men are still a bit bitchy that I ended up paying them a half a day late on their daily wages. This hurts the morale of everyone in the company, which sucks, but it's manageable. We'll be alright. The crowns earned from the contract immediately go to paying everyone their overdue wages. That gets the company out of the hole, but we still need a lot more money. That leads us to the other contract Eidsvik has for us. Oh, almost forgot, first this... Oh yeah, nothing like a quick cash injection to make the company happier about things. That's about a weeks worth of pay for the entire company there, so hopefully Well a courier mission isn't so interesting but it does pay 660 which is a lot for a job that doesn't involve nearly dying to skeletons. It also gives Grizz needed time to heal so I'm not mad at this job offer. Before we actually leave town I make a stop at the tavern and buy the men a round on me. The least I can do to improve morale a little after paying them late. Here's the route and how far we have to go. Now I see why it was paying well, the destination is about as far away from here as it could possibly be. This won't be a quick delivery, but like I said it pays well and Grizz needs the time to heal. It took us a little more than a day and a half to make the trip from Eidsvik to Krakendorf. Comparatively that means I spent about 225 on wages during the trip. Just minding my crowns again, I think we'll be alright from here on. Krakendorf is still pretty much a hole. But at least it's a hole with a job! Also I have 2,348 crowns now so we're starting to do well for ourselves. Sort of. You might spot I have only 2 units of tools and supplies left, and just over a days worth of rations left, so our new found wealth isn't going to last. Also that ambition about the banner required 2,000 crowns so I don't want to end up poor again. Speaking of that banner, we have the money for it and get it made right away. If you thought the banner was going to be a sort of imagined thing or company bonus or whatever, well you're wrong. The banner is a piece of equipment like any other and for it to have an effect you need someone holding it up proudly in battle. It is also a capable weapon, just a little less effective than a pike. Mr. Yar is the only one using a polearm type weapon right now and the banner can skewer people a lot better than a pitchfork so it goes to him for now. Because of the bonus the banner gives is based off who is holding it I will eventually want to find someone with high resolve, and preferably high melee attack to make them a designated banner man. They'll spend level ups on resolve and melee attack and perks related to resolve and morale and become a back row fighter able to dish out some damage but mainly to bolster the morale of the company to prevent panic mid-fight. No one really fits this bill yet, but I may have to revisit some brothers and see if they might be good for this role. If not then I can always keep my eyes out for a good hire. With the banner sorted out it's time to look into that job offer. Another town, another bunch of thieves to run down. It pays decent and shouldn't take more than a day so I can't complain much. I accept and head out after the thieves right away. The thieves have run off to the hills north west of Krakendorf, seen somewhat hidden behind the clouds. After I find them I have to chase them for another quarter of the day but like always they can't run forever, just long enough to annoy me. Thieves of Krakendorf The thieves were so out numbered they never really stood a chance. Even with Grizz sitting in reserve to heal the fight was 11 vs 6 and that's going to be a tough handicap to overcome no matter how well equipped you are. we only took a couple of hits and nothing that caused an injury so the Black Parade is ready to go for its next job as soon as they get back to town. Flesnolk leveled up and since he's been swinging a sword for this whole time I give him sword mastery. At level five everyone can take a mastery skill and they're worth while. Most of the mastery perks don't offer a huge bonus but few perks really do anything drastic. The decreased stamina use on skills is really nice, let's you fight longer before tiring out. For one handed swords it makes riposte more effective and for two handed swords it makes their area of effect attacks more accurate. Like I said, they're not game changing, but they are nice. Speaking of swords Travel Log also leveled up. I didn't assign him the perk at this very moment, intending to ask the thread or consider it a while longer but I was having such good results with the warbrand that by the end of this update I do give Travel Log sword mastery as well. He's kicking rear end with that thing and I want it to continue. Shinarato leveled as well and gets Student, as everyone does their first level up. Mojangles does the exact same as well. I want to point out at level two Mojangles has 69 melee attack after leveling. He is the second highest in the company behind Travel Log with 72, and Travel log has 3 more levels than Mojangles. Mo is going to turn out to be a slayer and I hope I find him a good two handed weapon soon. A quick and easy job to turn a 520 crown profit. Thief hunting has become a staple of The Black Parade's work and income. And as luck would have it by the time we returned to town there is another job offer waiting for us. Another courier mission, but it's much much closer this time. They pay also isn't as great this time around. Sorrel the Wise also warns that whatever we are delivering might attract enough attention that someone might attack us along the way. For only 260 crowns he's not paying enough for us to fight anything particularly threatening. Trogen isn't far away, just past Gelb and down the road a bit. If we don't get ambushed by anything along the way then 260 is about right for the job. It's along well patrolled roads so I don't think there will be any Unexpected Troubles. Unexpected Troubles! A company sent from a noble house are after Wokow. This happened because Wokow is, or was, a thief. Much like when Shin got pissy over the cookfire, this is another event directly tied to the background of a particular brother. Wokow is wanted and now we have to deal with it. We could surrender him voluntarily, which would suck. We'd lose Wokow and the company would probably lose faith in my leadership seeing that I'd hand one of them over like that. We could tell them we won't hand him over which poses problems. First it admits that we have Wokow with us and secondly it will likely provoke a fight with a bunch of well armed men-at-arms, and that is not a fight I think we could win right now. So I settle for the third option, let's try some diplomacy and/or out right lying to put them off the trail. It looks like they bought the story. When told with enough confidence and a plausible scenario of Wokow trying to steal from us there isn't much reason for the lawman to doubt us. Of course we're lying to his face, but he can't prove it and probably doesn't want to get in a fight for his life over the supposed fate of a thief. He'll report to his lord and they can assume justice was served. Meanwhile Wokow can continue on with us and not steal anything so no one comes back for him a second time. Right after the little scare with the lawmen the company settles into camp for the night an we talk about the next move for the company. Seeking a big battle will earn us fame which is nice, but the other two options have real repercussions. First and foremost is what we've been talking about for a while now, getting the nobles to notice the Black Parade and open the doors to more, and better paying, work. I select this as my choice. Naming a sergeant involves giving a brother a particular perk that relates to rallying men and keeping morale steady. I absolutely want to do this in combination with someone holding the banner we just made, but I haven't a candidate in mind yet. I'd like to find someone with high resolve and some stars in resolve to make our bannerman/sergeant. On the road close to Trogen I come across a small band of brigands. Guessing from the footprints I caught them just as they started fleeing into the mountains after ambushing something along the side of the road. We aren't getting paid for this, but there are only five of them so I consider them a sort of target of opportunity. It'll be an easy fight and maybe we'll make a few hundred crowns off of them. As well as exp for the brothers to level. [/ulr] [url=https://youtu.be/B7iyK7jkWck]Random Brigands This was an easy fight and went like anyone could have predicted. The nice thing is that some of these brigands had some nice gear. The Caesar Circle killed the last brigand but somehow despite his helmet, or more accurately chainmail coif being perfectly intact we did not recover it after the battle. This confuses me a bit since it was in perfect condition it should have shown up in the loot, but it didn't. Also I picked the pike up into inventory to make absolutely sure I kept it after the fight. Pikes are pretty much the best two hex reach weapon, personal tastes for shield smashing not withstanding. Not pictured is that it's normal attack gains +10 to hit. The pike is a really good weapon that can deal a lot of damage and still retains full effect vs armor. Compare to the hooked blade which is inferior in all ways. It doesn't have the +10 to hit on it's attack, and even though the hooked blade is slightly better vs armor the 10% extra effectiveness doesn't make up for the drop in damage dealt per hit. Still finding a hooked blade early on is nice, it is better than the pitchfork. For now Mr. Yar will get the pike and we'll be looking for someone to carry the banner. If I hadn't taken it before, then by after this battle Travel Log definitely has the sword mastery perk. The rest of the trip to Trogen is uneventful and we arrive in the town in the middle of the night to collect our pay. 260 isn't much at all, but honestly just happening upon those bandits and walking away with a pike was worth more crowns than the courier job. Pikes are usually more than 1,000 crowns to purchase. Trogen is another tiny town of no interest, no facilities and no reason to ever be here except when jobs demand it. At least there is a contract available while I am here, with luck it's a courier mission to send me somewhere else. Ah, a caravan mission, even better. Similar to a courier mission we escort a caravan from point A to point B. The big difference being we lose control of our company on the world map, we get attached to a caravan and simply wait out the trip. The nice things about caravans are that they are usually faster than we can travel ourselves, assuming we took the same path, and that as part of the caravan they feed us during the duration of the trip. That's kind of a minor thing, but I think it's nice that the caravan feeds its guards and a neat touch that the dev's put that in. However this has gone on long enough for now and we'll stop here. Next time we'll pick up on the road to Tiefenstadt and see what awaits us back over there.
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# ? Oct 7, 2017 22:48 |
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Jade Star posted:The nice things about caravans are that they are usually faster than we can travel ourselves, assuming we took the same path However, because caravans like to stick to roads, it often means they take a far longer path than your company would.
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# ? Oct 7, 2017 23:45 |
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Regarding town sizes: Far as I can tell, the amount of services directly correlates to the amount of houses you see around the town's central hex on the world map. The smallest ones with just one cluster of houses only have the marketplace and possibly some recruits, and from there it's one extra service per extra house cluster. For instance Krakendorf has two house clusters around it and thus has one extra service, which is the harbor, while Eidsvik with its three clusters has two extra services, the tavern and the temple. Extra attachments like ore smelters etc don't give a town any services beyond what the town size allows for, AFAIK they just increase the likelihood that what the town has will correspond to them, and affect the prices and/or range of goods available. So it was just unlucky that Turmwacht rolled a kennel instead of a weaponsmith or armorer. If it had rolled either of those the selection would've been better than a similar place without the ore smelters and blast furnace, although still probably not great as it's just a lovely little wooden fort. As a disclaimer, this is all just based on what I've pieced together myself during the ~340 hours of playing this game, I have no hard data on this. Another, totally unrelated thing: As Jade understandably has the music in the game turned really low, I just want to mention that the soundtrack in this game is actually really good. Nothing larger than life, which is fine because neither is the game. It's just good catchy tunes that fits its place perfectly. I also like that all the different enemy types have their own very distinct styles of battle music. Brigands have these kinda folky tunes, nothing bombastic since they're just lowly dudes living way out in the sticks. Meanwhile the undead are all about these creepy strings and steady rythm, befitting their tireless, inexorable marching. Other enemy types have their styles too but I won't go into them since we haven't seen any in the LP yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPIpK2qBaq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBXa3tZuO6M EDIT: According to the tracklist of the full OST, that bandit track's actual title is "Thug Life" Nordick fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 8, 2017 |
# ? Oct 8, 2017 01:57 |
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Are caravans, like, auto-stalked by brigands, or is it more random than that?
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# ? Oct 10, 2017 02:30 |
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Glazius posted:Are caravans, like, auto-stalked by brigands, or is it more random than that? I can't really tell you. Brigands are all over the place all the time just doing their thing. So some Rando's may attack the caravan you're protecting just as a course of natural events. I can't say if some caravan missions spawn encounters to explicitly ambush the caravan or not. If they do, its a low percentage, because a lot of the time caravan rides are boring and don't come under attack.
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# ? Oct 10, 2017 08:46 |
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And then sometimes your 1 skull caravan meets a never-ending swarm of brigands and your run ends almost as soon as it begins.
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# ? Oct 10, 2017 16:07 |
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I assume the locals all pray to Kos, that he might line their brains with eyes, and cleanse them of their beastly idiocy.
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# ? Oct 11, 2017 00:27 |
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The Black Parade, days 19-26 Last we left off we were hired on to escort a caravan to Tiefenstadt. Caravan guard duty is usually pretty uneventful. Sometimes you get attacked but pretty often you don't. I'm not certain on all the mechanics behind the scenes, but sometimes random brigands will try to ambush the caravan on the road and that is probably just emergent. Sometimes some Unexpected Troubles can happen during caravan duty that are very obviously scripted; a dialog window will come up and plot will happen kind of like when the nobles showed up for Wokow. Shown here is the route the caravan takes. It is a long, very long road ahead and will take about two game days to make the trip. Turns out the actual real time trip the caravan took was about 3 minutes and my little program exploded trying to turn a 3 minute video into a gif so that was lost. It will have to suffice for me to say the trip was long an uneventful. Well mostly uneventful. A woman in need? Well we are upstanding and respectable men with able bodies to lend aid, certainly we can help this woman out and it totally won't be a trap or something like that. Well, that's kind of somber. At least we could help someone in need I guess. We don't get anything for it, but maybe it'll reflect kindly upon the company. The rest of the journey was uneventful. 1130 is a lot of crowns for a escort mission, but it did take us about two whole days to get here so it kind of balances out. Let's take a look around town and see what we can find in Tiefen. Tiefen is well supplied from the caravan we just brought in and... has ambushed trade routes still... Huh... Yeah okay whatever game. It's night time so I can't see how that is going to screw with the markets but there is plenty of work to be had, so that's good news! Now that is a contract I can get behind. 1370 crowns for killing some bandits. Bandits at a location, a location that doesn't run away from me and also might have loot of its own there? Heck yeah! The other two contracts were armed courier missions so I'll come back and pick one of those up after we kill some brigands. The ruins aren't far, though we'll be slowed crossing the mouth of the bay. The game is kind of forgiving with small bodies of water. It won't actually force us to go all the way around the bay, we can cut across at the mouth of it but movement speed on water is pretty slow. Sometimes that is a lot better than having to go way out of the way to cross a small body of water. Before we get to the ruins we spot a small back of brigands heading south. They look like they are on their way back to the ruins. If they are it's a good thing we can kill them now before they can help defend their camp. And if they aren't and maybe just some random goons in our way we can still kill them for fun and profit! Brigands near Borgen That went pretty well. Was a little worried if their archers would pick off Sullat or something, but man they melted once we got into melee. We really do need some more archers of our own though. Sullat and Wokow both leveled and got spear mastery. At level five they have 55 and 56 melee attack, which is bad. Like I can recruit a level 1 dude with as much skill as that kind of bad. So they're going to stay with spears for the rest of their careers for that +20 to hit with spear thrusts. Shinarato leveled and gets fast adaptation, as does Shin's flail bro Grizzwoldicus. Flamester with his 64 melee and three stars in it has been doing good work with an axe for as long as I can remember so he gets axe mastery. Axe mastery is one of the mastery perks that has a significant secondary effect. Flamester now deals 50% more damage to shields when using the split shield ability. This can be huge because the ordinary wood shields we see most of the time have 24 durability. The axe Flamester has deals 8 damage with the split shield attack, meaning it would take 3 hits. With axe master he now deals 12 damage to shields and it only takes two hits. This is huge because that means Flamester can remove one enemy shield in just a single round, leaving them vulnerable for other people to hit right away. It also saves a ton of stamina, as split shield costs a fair amount of stamina to use. We also looted a bit of money and lots of crap equipment to sell later, but mostly that fight was just so well worth it for the level ups. It's nice to be going into the mission that much stronger. The ruins of an old fort make for decent brigand camps. It's a little disconcerting that I can't make out who is inside or how many. This was a three skull contract so I'm expecting a fairly large force, somewhere from 9-12 men total but unfortunately there is no way to find out ahead of time. To arms men! Ruins of Borgen Well gently caress that fight. Outnumbered by raiders and marksmen is not a fight I want to take right now. I've been saying it for a while but raiders are at least equivalent of our men right now and they're all wearing standard chain armor rather than the padded leathers and gambesons some of our men are still wearing. The four enemy marksmen, three of which with crossbows also didn't encourage me. Having to deal with some incoming bolts would likely cripple a man or two, if not kill someone as we closed the distance to melee, and then the melee would have been even at best for us. I could have won this fight, maybe, but we're mercenaries, and keeping ourselves alive is more important than victory at all costs. I don't like having to do this, but I'm abandoning this contract. This sucks, but there are some mitigating factors here. We didn't take any payment in advance so our employer won't be as mad at us. We've also done some work for Tiefen in the past so we have some goodwill built up which will probably be canceled out by this failure. There is nothing to lessen the hit to our reputation but it's the first and hopefully only time so we'll be alright there. I return back to Tiefen and sell some of the junk we picked up from the brigands we did manage to kill and then look in at the two courier contracts from before. One of them wants to send us all the way to the north most parts of the map, the other sends us to Eichendorf. We're going in circles again. Oh well, back to Eichendorf we go. Since I explored that middle plains area last time and found nothing there I'm not really interested in exploring it any further. I click on Eichendorf and let the game auto path me the quickest way, which it turns out was via the roads. I didn't think that would be faster than cutting through the middle but I'm not going to argue, the game has never let me down with its pathing yet. The road is uneventful until we get to Wanderer's Boon. You may remember this place fondly, as do I, for being full of loving brigands everywhere. We happen across a small group of brigands. Counting only five men and combined with the battle sight just off the road on the wooded side I can put together a picture of them fighting something, losing a few men and are now making off with their loot. If that is the case or not it doesn't really matter, I'm going to attack them and take their stuff anyway. We need a morale boost after the failed contract. Brigands of Wanderer's Booon Took a few more hits than I expected but no real injuries so it's all good. 180 crowns, a days' worth of food are nice, but the real finds here are the two nasal helmets and the chainmail coif. The coif may be rusty so it's not as good as it could be, but chainmail coifs are what I want all my archers to have. They offer the most protection possible with out lowering vision range. Vision range is important naturally, as an archer that can't see as far as their weapon can fire is at a disadvantage. The nasal helmets aren't great, but they're a very good starting point for helmets. They're much lighter than the heavy bronze helmets we took from the skeletons and offer about 105 armor value, which is more than the lighter skeleton helmets, and only slightly less than the heavier ones. Zeniel leveled up and gained Shield Expert to let him live longer. Zeniel is level 4 with 55 melee skill so he's really kind of mediocre at this point for offense. Defensively he's pretty decent, two stars in both so he might be a decent shield wall guy. Mr. Yar reached level 5 and can pick a weapon mastery and this is kind of an important one. Crossbow mastery makes them better at punching through armor, something like 20% more damage penetrates armor. Bow mastery gives an archer +1 range with bows and +1 vision range (needed to actually see as far as you can shoot). This decision can decide our doctrine about archers; do we want them firing at armored melee attackers who are likely to be carrying shield, or do we want them to be able to (usually) out range and suppress/kill enemy archers? Typically I am in favor of the second option. This is because of the build I've already set Mr. Yar upon, fast hands and a pike. With bow mastery and a pike Mr. Yar can out shoot enemy archers which help keeps our men safe from ranged fire, creates an incentive for enemies to push forward and deal with our range advantage (Granted we might need more than just Mr. Yar for this), and when enemies do get close Mr. Yar can just pull out the pike and stab people. The argument for crossbows is that they are more accurate at closer ranges (5 hexes or less) and they deal more damage through armor. I suppose it's a bit late given I gave Mr. Yar fast hands, but the argument can be made with the rules about shooting over friendlies at targets two hexes away you don't need the pike as a backup weapon, crossbows loving hurt at close range. I guess it comes down to a damage potential versus range/utility argument. My preference is Bow and Pike, but if Mr. Yar feels strongly one way or the other I'll let him decide. In the meantime I give him Bullseye. A useful skill for hitting targets using terrain for cover or for shooting baddies hiding behind other less important baddies. It's something I would have picked up anyway, and now Mr. Yar has time to post a preference regarding the bow/crossbow choice. Continuing on the long march to Eichendorf we almost make it there before our next event. In the woods just south of the town we come across some unattended children. Are you kidding me? Did we just stumble upon a gang of presumably abandoned children whom stoned a merchant to death and robbed his wagon? What the gently caress? Well we have a choice now, we can take the merchants goods for ourselves and face the wrath of scores of children with rocks, or just back away. Seriously gently caress these kids though, we're taking the loot. loving kids! Well we got a ring and some crowns for the troubles. Flamester's crushed finger isn't a serious injury, only -5% melee/ranged attack skill. The real problem is Mr. Yar's dislocated shoulder. That one sucks. -3 action points is brutal. Just as a reminder that men only have 9 AP a turn, and now Mr. Yar has only 6 until this heals. Worse than that, reloading his crossbow takes 7 AP. He actually cannot reload his crossbow in battle until his shoulder heals. If there was ever an injury to tend to at a temple this is probably the worst I've seen. The problem with that is that the cost of treatment at a temple would be about the same as the profit we'll get from selling the ring and the crowns we got from the kids that gave Mr. Yar the injury in the first place. Isn't that wonderful? Sigh... Onwards... Eichendorf is in sight. Well a modest payday, 590 crowns for a uneventful march isn't bad. The ring sells for another 250. If we can get some good money saved up my immediate thoughts are better armor for the men and hiring a few archers. Eichendorf doesn't afford opportunity for either really. I swear I'm still disappointed every time I come back here. At least there is a job for us. Ah thieves. Our bread and butter. What would I do without a constant supply of thieves to kill? Given recent events I'm fine with the mundane task of killing some thieves. The tracks lead into the dense woods. As good a place as any to run off to after stealing a coin collection. Wait, coin collection? God drat it can't we ever be killing thieves over something more important than a wealthy jerk's collectibles? Argh. Whatever. Following the tracks through the forest ends up with us emerging onto the road and finding the very thieves we are looking for about to attack a trade caravan and... Oh, that's a lot more thieves than I was expecting. I hope they're not as well armed or skilled as the brigands back at the Ruins of Borgen. Thieves of Eichendorf That was a bigger and harder fight than I'd expected really. The caravan hands didn't really accomplish much and the one proper guard just sat in the back the whole time. Fighting in forests also poses a lot of problems. AP cost per hex is increased and there is often a lot of rocks and trees and other thing blocking movement so it becomes very hard to move around and can often lead to bottlenecks where it's possible for one or two people to hold back a whole section of the map. Pawn got into some serious trouble but he'll be okay given some time, medicine, and rest. Everyone else will come away without any injuries. I'm glad theses were mostly thugs and not a solid force of raiders otherwise this might have been as bad as the Ruins of Borgen. Pawn leveled up and picks up mace mastery since he's been swinging around that morning star forever. The bonus to mace mastery is an increase to guarantee that if the secondary attack hits a target it stuns them for one round (if they are capable of being stunned). Mojangles leveled and gets fast adaptation. Hard Gay gets spear mastery since his melee attack is still poo poo. Simple enough. We are already on the road back to town and take it west out of the forest and back to Eichendorf. That guy really loves his coins... Okay creepy, I'm out of here. And so the week comes to a close. It's been a strange week for the company. Helping people fish dead family out of wells, getting in over our heads on a contract, getting pelted with stones by dozens of kids. But hey, we've got a bit of money for ourselves now. We'll need to find more work and if we happen past some good blacksmiths we may be in the market for good chainmail. If I remember right a mail hauberk costs about 1,000-1,500 crowns, so it's going to be a while before everyone has some, but it's a goal in our reach. Likewise finding some skilled archers to hire on remains a goal as well. We'll see how that all plays out next time though, the company needs some rest.
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# ? Oct 22, 2017 08:25 |
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In terms of mastery for archers I feel the game has a pretty good balance between the two. Backup pikes are still valuable for the inevitable 'I'm out of ammo and there's still stuff to shoot' problem so that's a good idea regardless of archer doctrine. Bows are more flexible though (being able to move and shoot or try for two coinflip shots on a problem enemy that needs to die is ace sometimes) and I like being flexible, so I'd agree with going for Bow Mastery. Edit: Also yeah, in exchange for having a secondary that targets the head really well, flails are heavy and use lots of stamina compared to hammers/maces. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Oct 22, 2017 |
# ? Oct 22, 2017 09:34 |
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Jade, haven't you seen Mad Max 3? Children are scary. I go with bows most of the time, my archers main purpose is to kill other archers and you don't (usually) need armor penetration for that.
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# ? Oct 22, 2017 09:58 |
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Can you by any chance add in a screenshot of the battle spoils screen for those of us who can't watch the video while reading through the update?
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# ? Oct 23, 2017 13:58 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 00:10 |
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Battle Brothers is 50% off right now, if you're like me and didn't know you wanted this game until reading the thread. Thanks Jade!
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# ? Oct 23, 2017 21:02 |