Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 2:55 pm

baelthazar wrote:I think I will pick this up today!

I do hate the name though. It makes me think of Mario and Luigi going to war.

Battle Brothers: Saga of the Mushroom War

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 4:10 pm

baelthazar wrote:I do hate the name though.

The main problem with the name is that "Battle Brother" is a Warhammer term. Games Workshop will probably sue them at some point. Part of the issue I think is that the developers are German and sometimes things just don't translate quite right. The Shakespearian "band of brothers" might be better but would probably be seen as derivative. Maybe they should have gone with "Dawgs of War" (woof, woof).

In my campaign I'd gotten my little band up to 11 men. Briefly that is. I was on a caravan protection contract and we were going through this really huge forest with woods all along the road and I thought to myself 'uh oh'. Sure enough we were ambushed. I was able to kill all the bandits but lost the 'fat idiot' original brother (no big loss) and had a lot of wounded and beat up equipment. I had enough medical supplies to heal all my guys eventually but I was way short on repair tool supplies. I figured I'd limp along and repair the best I could until we hit a town but no. No sooner had we started through the forest again than here comes a party of undead from the south along the road. I turned right around and headed back north because I'm in no shape for another fight. And then I see yet another party of bandits charging out from the forest to the west. It was a caravan sandwich. I ran like a little girl and left the caravan to its fate. So I didn't get paid for that and I feel real bad about leaving that one caravan guard that survived the first fight (we fought back to back) to such a horrible fate but it was every man for himself I tell ya.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Apr 29, 2015 4:48 pm

baelthazar wrote:I think I will pick this up today!

I do hate the name though. It makes me think of Mario and Luigi going to war.

Or those two nitwits on HGTV

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:30 am

Well, three bandit ambushes in a row put an end to my brave little party. I was down to only 9 men with 2 wounded from the previous ambushes when I got hit by the third. They had roughly twice as many men as me. My guys fought bravely but were overwhelmed by superior numbers and those damned bandit bowmen. My final melee fighter was a new recruit that kept his morale even when surrounded and took a few down with him. It's fitting that my last man to die was one of the original company founders and my best bowman (a bowyer before he became a merc). He perched on a hill and killed several bandits as they approached him. He got one final arrow into the last remaining bandit archer but then took an arrow himself the next turn and that was a wrap. It's too bad because I had a bloodthirsty guy with a two hand sword that was really becoming deadly. The AI in this game is really good though. The AI's archers focused on taking him out first. Note to self: More ranged defense next time.

This is an interesting game. It's very much a sandbox at the moment. They have the tactical battle part nailed, it's fantastic. What they need to do is flesh out the overworld strategic layer some more. Since that's their plan and they've got a year of EA to go, I have really high hopes for the final game. So if you love tactical battles and procedurally generated sandbox worlds without any real guiding theme other than "survive and become a rich, badass mercenary company", you'll enjoy it now. If you like a overarching story and strategic world level management, it might be best to wait a while until they add that.

I hope this sells well enough for the devs to be able to quit their day jobs and work on this full time. They chose EA as the way to go over a kickstarter and I hope that works out for them. The world needs more games like this.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 6:55 pm

Man, my last two campaigns went nowhere. I wonder if the recent patches made the game harder. I'm having trouble just surviving for 5 or 6 days now.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Mon May 04, 2015 5:43 am

This game became even better when I stopped trying to play ironman style. Now I'm playing as if it was a fantasy JA2; one death per battle is fine. Two is o if it feels right. Total party wipes and random kills one shot kills (rare now that we have real armor) allow me to reload.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon May 04, 2015 9:00 am

So what names are you giving your mercenary companies? I named mine the 'Black and Blue' company because of the lumps they constantly take. I may name one the "Blood Eagles" because that's what the orcs end up doing to them.

This game is like Dwarf Fortress. You know it's going to end badly for you at some point. The only question is how epic the story and the ending battle is going to be.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Mon May 04, 2015 9:14 am

War Pigs - named after the flag (and a college mascot). Battle Sows sounds better but with all male mercs it just did not fit.

This game is doing something that seemed impossible. Its combining JA2 and Mount & Blade. The only drawback is that the map feels fairly empty.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon May 04, 2015 9:57 am

Madmarcus wrote:This game is doing something that seemed impossible. Its combining JA2 and Mount & Blade. The only drawback is that the map feels fairly empty.

I agree, the world needs work. But they know it. They said they wanted to get the battle mechanics down first before they fleshed out the world. There's a ton of stuff still to be added. That it's as good as it is already with a year to go before release bodes extremely well.

War Pigs, huh? I can just see your battle brothers listening to the epic Black Sabbath 'War Pigs' song as they slaughter the young orcs.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Mon May 04, 2015 11:48 am

I know of the song but its certainly not my direct inspiration. My university had a strong residential college system and the mascot of Wiess College was a War Pig. I'd guess it goes back to the Black Sabbath song but by the 80's it was just a name to yell.

ydejin · Post by **ydejin** » Mon May 04, 2015 4:20 pm

Madmarcus wrote:War Pigs - named after the flag (and a college mascot). Battle Sows sounds better but with all male mercs it just did not fit.

This game is doing something that seemed impossible. Its combining JA2 and Mount & Blade. The only drawback is that the map feels fairly empty.

Battle Sisters are coming, so eventually you'll be able to lead the Battle Sows:

Overhype Studios wrote:We want to have some [female mercenaries] eventually. Female characters will come with their own backgrounds that take into account how a quasi-medieval world treats them, so they won’t just be male characters with different heads either. Just like their male counterparts, some will be more and some will be less suited to the hard life as mercenaries. Here is a preview of how they might look:

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Wed May 06, 2015 10:42 am

There's a new and very positive article by Adam Smith up over at RPS. He really likes the game.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05 ... -brothers/

My mercs are still alive in my current campaign. I finally found some repair tools and fixed all my weapons and armor last night. I got a nice contract to take out a big bandit camp for a good price at the same castle. I was moving in on the site and the tooltip said "challenging" and I thought, uh oh, but right before I attacked, two war parties left the fort and the fort's difficulty rating went down. That's so cool because it means they're simming things like this at a very detailed level. I attacked the fort and won with only the loss of a recent recruit and got a ton of good gear. Then I chased down the two war parties and slaughtered them. They were rated "puny" compared to my band and they both ran like rabbits. They were actually pretty hard to catch because they zig and zag like champs.

Now most of my men are in the level 3 to 5 range and it's really getting interesting with the perks.

The devs have been cranking out patches nearly every day (including a new one today) and you can actually see the game improve right before your eyes as you play it. The fixes have not broken save game compatibility so a lot of the issues I experienced at the beginning of the campaign have melted away with each patch. I reported a bug a few days ago and they responded to me via email and fixed it the very same day. These devs really impress me.

dbemont · Post by **dbemont** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 9:52 am

Anybody playing the recent update? What do you think?

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:33 am

Played it for a little while last night and so far it seems really solid. The world map is much more interesting now with different factions holding different towns, and one thing I especially like is that each town can have different special buildings, visible on the map around it, that give it different items to sell, more troops to defend it, etc.

I had heard right after the new update dropped some of the early game was a little on the hard side, but they've patched twice already, and things didn't seem too bad in my new game after 4 or 5 fights. So far I've only lost one spearman and I've won 2 or 3 battles against bandits, a battle against dire wolves, and a battle against ghouls.

Still looks like there's some room for improvement and balancing, but it feels much more polished now.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:16 pm

dbemont wrote:Anybody playing the recent update? What do you think?

I've been playing it some. It was kind of rough with bug and imbalance issues in the initial update release but they sorted most of that out really fast with a few quick hot patches. They're very responsive devs.

It now has a starting tutorial of sorts, which still needs some more work I think. It doesn't really do quite enough hand holding for new players yet as it currently doesn't explain some things well enough that need explaining. Beyond that, I think they've done a great job of making the world a far more interesting place to explore. They've just fleshed out so much stuff. There many more types of contracts now. I just finished one where some dire wolves were terrorizing a fishing village so I had to hunt them down for a payoff from the village council. They also dropped some nice wolf pelts which sell for a goodly amount. There's factions you can gain favor with now, including the villages/cities you do contracts for. There's various trade goods you can buy in villages and sell in the big cities for profit. The world map is much bigger. There's map fog in unexplored areas now. There's more types of weapons, a lot of new art. In general, more of everything. I think it's getting much closer to being a complete game now.

The tactical battles in this game are second to none. The AI is very good. New players will need to learn good battle tactics or they'll get their butts handed to them by the AI. Like X-com, you're going to lose men. Sometimes you're lucky to come back from a hard contract with more than a few men. You get very attached to your battle brothers so it's always difficult to see them go down. I lost one of my fishermen turned mercenaries (named wolf ironically enough) to one of the dire wolves in the contract mentioned above. He had some very promising starting traits so I was like "Wolf, nooooo" when he died. I just replaced him with a thief that's on the run from the authorities at the next village.

To sum up, the battles have been great in this game from the very beginning. It was the over-world strategy layer that needed serious beefing up and so far it seems they've done a really nice job with that. They're still adding in new types of contracts and there's still some features like camp followers and new battle maps (like dungeon settings) that still aren't in. It also still needs some more balance and polish. Still, I've seen enough to predict this game will become an instant classic in this genre when it's released.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:29 pm

What's up with all these game posted about a year or two ago, that are still in early release?

That said. OO just talked me into Factorio, which I haven't got to play so I just wishlisted this.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:22 pm

LordMortis wrote:What's up with all these game posted about a year or two ago, that are still in early release?

It's the new thing. You send up an early release, hope for some income, and dribble out releases until you're finally done 1-5 years afterwards.

Hell, I'm still twirling my fingers in the sand, waiting for Project Zomboid to finish. It's been something like 5 years now. No end in sight.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:12 pm

I'm only doing Early Access on titles like Factorio which have a history. Factorio sold 100,000 copies before it even came to Steam.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 3:07 pm

I generally avoid Early Access as well but I do make some exceptions and this game is one of them.

The developers were up front about why they went the Steam Early Access. They are a 3 developer team and they all had day jobs. They had part of the game developed and a public demo but much of the game was still undeveloped. They considered Kickstarter as a way to get funding to develop the remaining game but because they're based in Germany and because of the work involved in getting a Kickstarter up from there, and the overhead costs, they decided to go with Steam EA as an alternate funding route. With the funds gotten from EA they've all been able to quit their day jobs and devote full time to game development. During the process, the beta testers have been able to provide them with a lot of useful feedback which they've been very good at accepting or rejecting based on their own vision of the game.

There aren't a lot of medieval X-com type games like this made (as in zero) so I made a decision to support development, just as I would have if it had been Kickstarted instead. The EA price is also lower than the release price so there's that as well. So far, I am not disappointed. The full game is currently due to release around the June timeframe, which is the roadmap they posted a year ago.

All that being said, 99% of all EA games I wouldn't touch with a 30 foot pole.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 5:53 pm

I'd probably buy it this weekend if I hadn't just bought another game I haven't touched at full price.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 6:46 pm

(wavering) I've heard it's really hard. I don't like really hard. Is there a difficulty setting for dum dum's like me?

storz · Post by **storz** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:14 pm

Lorini wrote:(wavering) I've heard it's really hard. I don't like really hard. Is there a difficulty setting for dum dum's like me?

There are 3 difficulty settings, I would suggest start at even setting, as the last 2 difficulty setting are quite hard, especially earlier on. I played some after the major update, the initial impression is the game balance is off, as the earlier game is really hard, but developer has listened and since put up 3 updates to adjust the balance/UI issues, and so far it plays fine, I was able to make several thousands gold from contracts while field 10 men (mostly of them lvl 2-3 now) mercenary company. (although I made mistake that thinking I'm good enough to take on orcs. Oh, boy, was I wrong...

, so lesson learned, need more exp. before take on orcs, those young orcs are tough).

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:15 pm

Thanks, bought.

ydejin · Post by **ydejin** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 7:15 pm

ColdSteel wrote:With the funds gotten from EA they've all been able to quit their day jobs and devote full time to game development. During the process, the beta testers have been able to provide them with a lot of useful feedback which they've been very good at accepting or rejecting based on their own vision of the game.

I think this is one of those few real Early Access success stories. It seems very clear that the game would have been much simpler without the backing of early access buyers. It's really great to see that they've put the time and money gained from EA into good use.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:28 am

There seem to be a lot more contracts out there than there used to. be Plus lots more supplies, men and other stuff. It's not nearly as hard as it used to be to get a company up and running and keep it funded and fed.

I got a noble faction contract last night to patrol a stretch of roads and kill bandits. After some negotiating they agreed to give me 85 gold per head that I bring back and 250 gold on contract completion. Well, now, this is a pretty lucrative deal. I've already got about 28 heads and I'm nowhere near done yet. The bandits are poorly equipped and most of the time they don't even have an archer. It's been easy pickings and I'm making a fortune off the loot I get from them after the battles regardless of the reward for their heads. I already have 9 brothers up to level 3/4 and I'm having a blast.

I did lose one of my best fighters in a contract fighting a huge pack of ghouls in an abandoned cemetery. But's that's BB for you.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:14 pm

Yeah, I'm having a blast in my new game as well. No big problems so far getting men, contracts, or gear.

So far I've only lost 2 or 3 guys, and them mostly just new hands who didn't quite duck at the right time during their first battles. My original 3 are all level 5 now and getting to be pretty tough, although I'm starting to run into more 2nd tier enemies now... goblin overseers, armored bandits, etc. Much better loot from them, but armored targets are still tough to take down. I did just upgrade one of my archers to a crossbow though, and after seeing it in action I plan on upgrading my others as well.

Really almost everything in the game is pretty solid so far. The leveling curve and equipment progression feel good, the battles early on feel about the right difficulty. The map is also really well done now... nice, varied terrain and pretty to look at.

So what skills are people taking when leveling their guys? With my archers I go offense, since they don't usually get into melee much, but with most of my guys who are part of the shield wall, I go defense and start with shield master(? whatever the skill is that gives your shield defense values a boost). With my original 3 I also went with the +20% exp skill early to help level them faster. My unit makeup right now is: 2 archers, 3 skirmishers (ranged weapons and 2 handed polearms), and 7 shield bearers (shields and single handed weapons).

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:34 pm

Sepiche wrote:I did just upgrade one of my archers to a crossbow though, and after seeing it in action I plan on upgrading my others as well.

Yeah, I got one the first place I saw it. They're just too good against armor to pass up, in spite of the -1 range and having to reload.

Sepiche wrote:So what skills are people taking when leveling their guys?

With archers the first thing I give them is quick hands and bags and belts. That way I can swap out their ranged weapon for a billhook and put them behind the front line to attack over the top without a fatigue penalty for carrying extra weapons or extra AP costs on the switch. For my melee guys, in a new company I give all of them Nine Lives as a first skill. It's just too good. Basically it allows you to take a fatal blow and still survive. After that I take the skill that boosts shield defense by 25% (including shield wall). For my 2 hand melee I give him dodge to start off with. After that I switch to the offense perks more. I think survivability is better at the beginning of the game when you really can't afford to lose many guys.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 11:38 pm

Man, those grown Orc warriors are tough. I got a contract to clean out an Orc stronghold and they were all young Orcs except for one grown Warrior. He had a metal shield and a big-ass axe and I just could not break the shield. I had him surrounded by men with axes and hatchets and my crossbowman was firing away point blank. He still killed two of my men before I could bring him down. He did leave that invincible shield and axe behind for me though. The shield wasn't even scratched.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 10:49 am

I must be feeling spendy. I have no time to play three games and I shouldn't be going off budget. You guys suck.

And downloading now.

Baroquen · Post by **Baroquen** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:00 pm

LordMortis wrote:I must be feeling spendy. I have no time to play three games and I shouldn't be going off budget. You guys suck.

And downloading now.

This.

Bought it too, because I know I like these types of games and wanted something new. Played a scenario or two this morning. Going to dig into the campaign shortly. Looking forward to it.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:56 am

Baroquen wrote:Played a scenario or two this morning. Going to dig into the campaign shortly.

That's a very good point. Anyone that just got the game should at least play the combat basics scenario (the first scenario in the list) before moving on to the campaign.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 12:03 pm

ColdSteel wrote:
Baroquen wrote:Played a scenario or two this morning. Going to dig into the campaign shortly.
That's a very good point. Anyone that just got the game should at least play the combat basics scenario (the first scenario in the list) before moving on to the campaign.

Does that show me how to look at the enemy and read what their damned Icons mean?

For that matter does it help to learn how to prevent one shot kills? I'd be doing fine if it weren't for those one shot kills.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 12:47 pm

LordMortis wrote:Does that show me how to look at the enemy and read what their damned Icons mean?

Overhype Studios wrote:Yeah, we want to have a small popup window with a paragraph describing the enemy and listing their status effects and passive skills. Currently, you see status effect icons dropping on enemies (e.g. enrage on zombies) and have no idea what they actually mean. And this is only going to get worse as we introduce more enemy types, status effects and passive skills. We feel that the player is left in the dark here a bit too much.

That said, we won’t give out actual numbers for things like hitpoints and will continue to only show relative values as is. We decided early on that fighting enemies shouldn’t be about numbers and min-maxing, and that enemies would feel less like a bunch of stats but more of an opponent you can never really be sure about by hiding the numbers. It already worked well for the original X-Com and gave more mystery to the aliens, in my opinion.

So, if you hover your mouse over the enemy and nothing pops up, then it's not been added quite yet.

LordMortis wrote:For that matter does it help to learn how to prevent one shot kills? I'd be doing fine if it weren't for those one shot kills.

Make sure that you get all of your men a full-size shield ASAP. That alone will prevent 1 shot kills 99% of the time. Also put something on all their heads to prevent head-shot damage. Then, when fighting, you can use your attack skill for 4 AP and then use the "shield-wall" skill. That will provide a lot of additional protection. Wait for the enemy to come to you, don't go to him (unless he's ranged), that gives them a free attack on you. As soon as your men get a level, look at taking the "9 lives" perk in the first tier of defensive perks. It prevents one-shot kills. There's also a shield boosting skill and a dodge skill there as well to provide more protection as you level. I hope that helps.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 1:47 pm

ColdSteel wrote:Make sure that you get all of your men a full-size shield ASAP. That alone will prevent 1 shot kills 99% of the time. Also put something on all their heads to prevent head-shot damage. Then, when fighting, you can use your attack skill for 4 AP and then use the "shield-wall" skill. That will provide a lot of additional protection. Wait for the enemy to come to you, don't go to him (unless he's ranged), that gives them a free attack on you. As soon as your men get a level, look at taking the "9 lives" perk in the first tier of defensive perks. It prevents one-shot kills. There's also a shield boosting skill and a dodge skill there as well to provide more protection as you level. I hope that helps.

I've got a few two handed or double grip guys.

I'm not sure I know what a full size shield it. Right now all my guys are using "Wooden shield"

I'm also not sure all of my one shot kills are from head shots. There isn't much indication. Enemy strikes can cycle very fast and the summary in the upper left hand corner only says such was killed by such and such.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 2:44 pm

LordMortis wrote:I've got a few two handed or double grip guys

If you have a guy with the 2 hand axe (to split shields) make sure you give him your best armor and give him the dodge perk ASAP (after 9 lives). I don't recommend double grip early on in the game. Too easy to get one-shot. If you want specialized two handed damage dealers, make sure they have great armor and some means of defense or they won't last very long.

LordMortis wrote:I'm not sure I know what a full size shield it. Right now all my guys are using "Wooden shield"

There's a really tiny looking shield you may see in stores that's smaller than the normal wooden shield. You may also get them as loot in droves. Avoid them, they are terrible for protection. I sell them as I get them. It sounds like you're using the right type.

LordMortis wrote:I'm also not sure all of my one shot kills are from head shots.

Likely not. They're pretty rare in the early game. Getting hit in the head causes a lot of damage though because you usually don't have great head armor early on. Just make sure you have something on everyone's head. Even the 20 or 30 armor points from a hood helps to prevent some damage. Also make sure you keep your armor repaired. It's not very useful when degraded. And try not to put injured men into battle before they heal up from the previous fight. It's usually just a quick way to die.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 2:49 pm

And there we go. Time put shields on all my double grip guys, I guess. I like having an axe guy and he does have my best armor... And has still died twice.

I'm getting people to nine lives as fast as I can but not quite fast enough.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 3:30 pm

LordMortis wrote:I like having an axe guy and he does have my best armor... And has still died twice.

Yeah, I've had my axe guy die once in my current game. I always try to pick the one that has the best starting melee defense and melee attack skills to be that guy. It makes him a little harder to kill and it helps if he can split the shield on the first try rather than having to have several goes at it (and getting killed in the process). The good news is if you can keep them alive long enough to get into the second tier of the offense perks, you can turn your two hand guy into walking death.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:14 am

I was feeling rather good about my little company. I had plenty of cash and supplies, had filled out the troop with some nice wildmen with great stats from a border town and had some spiffy armor and weapons gotten from previous raider battles. So, when I saw the raider stronghold hidden deep in the forest, I did something that I should have known not to do. I attacked it. Yes, it contained a bandit leader but so what? I could take him down. And his little dog too. And I probably could, except I forgot that the damn bandit camp was smack in the middle of a forest.

I hate forest fights. You can't see. You can't move. It basically negates all the advantages that you have. Sure enough, my men were split by terrain and the bandit leader on one side killed 3 of my men before I could get more men there and take him down and I lost yet one more on the other side of the map.

So, 4 men lost in a single battle. I got some good loot but that's offset by the loss of experienced men and the cost of recruiting 4 more men and leveling them back up. Note to self: Don't get overconfident in this game.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:36 pm

In case anyone was thinking of picking it up, this is currently on Steam sale:

SPECIAL PROMOTION! Offer ends March 14
-20%
$15.99

Malacheye · Post by **Malacheye** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:24 am

Just Bought It