Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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KDH
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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... Enlarge Image

:horse: ... GOG Release: ... Battle Brothers ... DRM-FREE
Bad company, till the day I die.

Battle Brothers, a turn-based tactical RPG with tabletop sensibilities is now available, DRM-Free on GOG.com with a 25% launch discount.
Contracts no one else would go after. Men no one else would travel with. This has your name written all over it. Hire the right people, equip them as your purse allows, and pick your next mission from a map full of perilous opportunities. When the battle finally starts, make sure Lady Luck stands by your side and your moves are as calculated as an ambush on a narrow passage.
Upgrade to the Supporter Edition for the soundtrack, a digital supplement with art, lore, and behind-the-scenes info, plus the legendary item Fangshire.

The 25% discount will last until July 27, 1PM UTC.
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LordMortis
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Every time I pick this game up I wonder why I set it down. I am finally coming up on my first crisis on day 72. The warnings make it look like it's going to be the nobles war crisis. I really have no idea what I'm in for. I never filled out my roster because it was too expensive. I'm still primarily surviving off of equipment I found, though I have purchased a couple of war bows, several bill hooks, and couple of noble swords.

I'm wondering how it'll play out. I haven't done any faction quests for fear of pissing off other factions. I like to contract out to everybody.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

According to Steam, 273 hours and counting. It's now my 2nd most played game since records started being kept.

Really, the only thing that I wish was possible at the point was someway to tweak the game settings a bit more and mod tools. I wouldn't be able to do much with it personally but I've can imagine that nerds across the internet could make some pretty great stuff. This doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon or even ever right now.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Freyland »

So your saying I should try it again? I kinda bounced off it during my first run at understanding the game.
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LordMortis
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

I would support mods... In that I would see what's up with them... :D

Noble war spoiler.
Spoiler:
So I joined a side and now I'm getting me better armor and helms but oh boy was the first battle against "Scouts" tough and I don't have much of a reserve. I'm visiting temples for healing for the first time.
I also ventured off and picked up my second bit unique equipment. I gots me a 330 armor halbrauk.

Steam says I'm up to 140 hours on the game. Not bad, considering I set it down 4 times now and I've always come back and enjoyed it.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Got my ass handed to me in castle siege during the Noble War. And with all of grace and dignity I could muster, I reset. I'm kind of glad I did. I know a lot more about leveling up and the some of the game parameters seem to have changes but did not affect the old save games.

I bought a falcon in my new game! And no sooner than I buy one another one become available. I saw exactly one in last in my game in all of travels and I was broke then.

The Falcon is sooo worth the 1000 pieces for the night and low advisability rounds. It's almost cheating.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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LordMortis wrote:Got my ass handed to me in castle siege during the Noble War. And with all of grace and dignity I could muster, I reset. I'm kind of glad I did. I know a lot more about leveling up and the some of the game parameters seem to have changes but did not affect the old save games.
Nothing wrong with restart. Remember though, you can retreat from battles you don't think you can win. It does give your guys temporary injuries if they aren't at the edge of the map but your bros will survive.

I had to run away from my first attempt at taking an Orc war camp. Never tried it before... and I"m not sure how I'm going to either. My guys are mostly level 10-15 and have maxed perks and good equipment. Beating 30+ orcs with minimal or no casualties is a tall order.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Archinerd wrote: Remember though, you can retreat from battles you don't think you can win.
I don't understand. ;) though I will shamefully admit to save scrumming to avoid defeat on a few occasions.

My guys are mostly level 10-15 and have maxed perks and good equipment. Beating 30+ orcs with minimal or no casualties is a tall order.
My highest level guys were 9 nine when I quit. I've taken orc camps before with considerably weaker forces, but there were at the most, maybe 20 orcs with all but maybe 4 being Orc young, with like two warriors and two berzerkers. That was pre-release though and the game has change quite a bit from April and earlier when I last played.

I don't mind the restart. I have a lot of lessons learned, so I will have a lot less waster perks. For instance, I think the long axe might be a better second weapon for all of my archers, whom previously had the polearm as second weapon specialty. I'll also start cherry picking recruits when I get enough cash and buy even less equipment than I did before, relying even more on scavenging, so I can dump more money into recruits and wait to pay for only top tier equipment.

It's an enjoyable learning curve.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

I'm playing with more variable tactics this time, attempting to adjust for the enemies I am facing.

It's working well. If I could level up my reserves, it would work even better. I could have different squad compositions in the wings for different battles.

I am loving the spearwall against the zombies. It's so perfect watching them bounce of the all and yet keep hitting it, whereas the raiders, for instance, are smart go "yeah, I don't think so" and stop short of the wall to throw javelins, so then you bring up the long axes...

This game is just so absolutely well done and continues to scratch the wargame style boardgamer itch in me.

I'm still not attempting anything past beginner with no ironman. We'll see how this campaign goes.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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LordMortis wrote:
I'm still not attempting anything past beginner with no ironman. We'll see how this campaign goes.
Day 243. Beginner levels with Ironman. I almost quit 100 or so days ago when my best bro got killed (he was one of my starting 3) but I decided to keep going. We're tough enough to take on pretty much anything except for Orc War camps and Goblin Cities. I've attempted both twice but can't seem to make any real progress against them. After we finish licking our wounds from the latest attempt I'm going to try again.
Oh, I'm scared of anything with more than 2 Necrosavants too.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

One of my 10 level guys done gone got himself brain damaged. :( I think it happened from an event.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by ColdSteel »

LordMortis wrote:One of my 10 level guys done gone got himself brain damaged
I think brain damaged isn't that bad in this game, right? I think you lose some XP gain and some initiative but the morale improves. If he's already level 10 the XP shouldn't be an issue and if he's a tank, the other stuff is actually okay too.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

ColdSteel wrote:
LordMortis wrote:One of my 10 level guys done gone got himself brain damaged
I think brain damaged isn't that bad in this game, right? I think you lose some XP gain and some initiative but the morale improves. If he's already level 10 the XP shouldn't be an issue and if he's a tank, the other stuff is actually okay too.
He's a jester. I was (am?) developing him as a head hunter.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

I've started playing this again and am about 20 days into my latest band - the Wolfbrothers. Which seems to have been a prescient name since the grumpy under-fed misfits just had a great battle against some brigands posing as wolves. Not only did we manage to kill all the buggers without anyone dying or taking a serious injury, we managed to salvage 5 complete sets of their unique wolf pelt chainmail. Very classy and on brand.

As exciting as all of this is (or isn't), I also just discovered there is a new expansion in the works.
We’re very excited to announce that we’re working on a full-sized DLC for Battle Brothers. Yes, you heard that right – there’s going to be a real and meaty expansion with fresh content coming for that game that you like. The name of the upcoming DLC is going to be ‘Beasts & Exploration’.

That’s a pretty telling name, and as it suggests, the focus of the DLC will be on introducing new beast opponents in order to bring more variety to every stage of the game, and to make exploring the world more interesting and rewarding. But that’s not all!
Price and release date are still yet to be determined but there are new posts on the Development blog (every Friday?).
I'm a day one on this for sure, since Battle Brothers is my most played game on Steam

Announced so far, a handful of new weapons and 2 new baddies;
The Hexe - a wild witch that charms your bros or curses them.
The Untold - a sort of bigfoot / yeti type monster that can toss your guys around.

Devblog here.
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LordMortis
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

No time. I am not reading this thread. Nope.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Baroquen »

I may take another run at this. I was pretty underwhelmed when I played it before, but maybe it was an early version, or I "rolled" a barren/boring map to explore. Either way, I was disappointed because I really thought I'd like it. Maybe a second try will do the trick.

Of course, with my backlog, the expansion could be out by the time I get to it.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by NickAragua »

This game's got its hooks into me something fierce. After several false starts, where any company I started was exterminated or forced to retire within a couple of weeks tops, I got a good rhythm going (forced to retire meaning got massacred and didn't have the money to come back from it).

So far, I've got a pretty decent line-up for straight-up brawling. A couple of bowmen and guys with javelins/axes in the second rank to soften up the bad guys as they approach, and then they switch to pikes and other two-handed "reaching" weapons. Up front, I've got a line of guys with spears and a backup weapon each. The spears are for "spear wall", while backup weapons include axes (to break shields), maces (to break skeletons), hammers (to break armor and skeletons) and flails (to crack heads and skeletons). As you can tell I hate skeletons. Front guys obviously have shields and the heaviest armor I can find too. Swords seem pretty pointless so far.

The most awesome thing I found so far was a two-handed axe with a range of two hexes, so one of my rear-line guys can break people's shields off.

The main thing I have trouble dealing with are necromancers. They keep raising zombies, and I usually can't hack them down fast enough. Meanwhile, my bow guys don't have the range, as the asshole usually sits way in the back, safe behind his zombie wall. I guess I'll probably need to leave one or two guys un-engaged and see if I can run around the main wall to kill him.

Orcs are actually not much trouble. They're heavily armored, and keep charging in, but as long as I maintain formation, I can pick them off. Some of the higher-level ones can move my guys around, which is a little annoying.

Goblins - eh, whatever. The wolves are pretty crazy fast, but it doesn't matter if they jump in at my front line.

The ghost guys get pretty obnoxious. I only fought them once, but they routed an entire flank, causing me to hit the "retreat" button before my guys would get massacred. That cost a *lot* of healing supplies.

Ghouls ("Nachrezers"?) are amazingly awful. Fast, and they eat corpses to regenerate. Which causes them to grow horns and get tougher. And, the bigger ones can swallow your bros down in one gulp.

I also ran into a "Lindwurm", but the description of "massive serpent" made me decide to avoid that fight. A bunch of guys in rusty patchwork chainmail with notched spears probably don't have a chance.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

November 29th can't come soon enough for me.
More monsters, more weapons, more equipment and a "crafting" system.

Beasts & Exploration DLC
$10.
($20 for supporter edition & fancy kraken banner/armor)
NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:50 am The main thing I have trouble dealing with are necromancers. They keep raising zombies, and I usually can't hack them down fast enough. Meanwhile, my bow guys don't have the range, as the asshole usually sits way in the back, safe behind his zombie wall. I guess I'll probably need to leave one or two guys un-engaged and see if I can run around the main wall to kill him.
I usually try to take out the necromancer with a sharp shooter. The best bow and high archery.
If you're tough enough you can brute force it too and after you take down the first wave send a few bros forward to get the necromancer while the rest protect any wounded and make sure the dead that are down, stay down.

Goblins can be very nasty in large numbers, don't get over confident.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:50 amThe main thing I have trouble dealing with are necromancers. They keep raising zombies, and I usually can't hack them down fast enough. Meanwhile, my bow guys don't have the range, as the asshole usually sits way in the back, safe behind his zombie wall. I guess I'll probably need to leave one or two guys un-engaged and see if I can run around the main wall to kill him.
This was my plan for them as well. It was mighty tedious until I managed to get someone right up in his face.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Haven't played in a long time and never even finished the first calamity when they were introduced to the game but my recollection (before there was such a thing as lindwurm to my knowledge) that the one thing that most assuredly would wipe my party was the vampire thingies. Lots of guys were tough. Named villains would assuredly give me a strong run for my money as would masses of goblins or a party of full grown greenskins but vampires I never could beat.

I'd jump at give $10 for a content expansion. They deserve me money.

With regard to necromancers, I found they were too far away to sharpshoot and moving a wall of men to get the close enough wasn't effective. I'd slow flank them with my tanks.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

Against the necromancer & zombie horde, try advancing your line 1-2 tiles right at the battle start before the zombies advance and get your archer on high ground if possible.
It also helps if your archer is leveled up, bow proficiency gives 1 extra tile range.

You'll still need to hold the line for several turns unless you get lucky and 1-hit the necromancer. It can happen but don't count on it.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

Oh, and be sure to use maces & cleavers to bash skulls in or decapitate as many of those zombies as you can.
With no brain they can't be raised from the dead again.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Archinerd wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 10:21 am decapitate as many of those zombies as you can.
This. I didn't know you could bash a head in . I will have to try that one day.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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My main problem this run through is that I haven't really seen too many guys that are good at ranged combat, which led me to "Landsknecht" tactics. So while I have guys with bows, they get swapped out to pikes and whatnot once the enemies close to melee range. But yeah, moving up seems to be a good idea in general.

Another amusing tidbit - I had to fire a guy who was a) superstitious and b) looked at a scary cloud the wrong way and got a trait that reduced his resolve by 50%. Leading to a total of 17 resolve. Yeah, bye.

The necromancer fight, I eventually beat after re-starting it, although I lost two guys. It was one of those fights where a bunch of bandits are selling some relic or whatever to the necromancer. So once I kill the bandits, the necro raises them as zombies. I got one of my guys around the back and killed the necromancer, but the two nearby enemy archers stabbed him to death, and then I lost another guy in the front line. Well, he survived, he just got brain damage. Oops.

I actually figured out that, if a noble assigns you to a patrol route, the guys you fight don't have to be on the patrol route. I was short a large number of heads, so I went off to a nearby ruin, killed a large batch of goblins, then came back for a nice bonus.

The point about goblins is well-taken, after I originally posted, I got into a fight with some goblin ambushers and skirmishers, and those damn ambushers shot down one of my guys (who had a kite shield, no less!) with one shot. Yikes.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:27 pmThe point about goblins is well-taken, after I originally posted, I got into a fight with some goblin ambushers and skirmishers, and those damn ambushers shot down one of my guys (who had a kite shield, no less!) with one shot. Yikes.
Yeah. "Goblins" in this game aren't wussy D&D "fodder" creatures in this game. They're more like Uruk-Hai from Lord of the Rings. I think all of the monsters are surprisingly potent - or maybe you're commanding a group of normies who aren't elite centuries-old bad asses.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:27 pm My main problem this run through is that I haven't really seen too many guys that are good at ranged combat,
Yeah, I think this is one of the issues they haven't resolved. Even if the background is archer/poacher and they come with a bow, most of them still have terrible ranged skills. I've gone entire games without finding more than one recruit with a decent ranged skill.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Paingod »

ColdSteel wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:59 pm
NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:27 pm My main problem this run through is that I haven't really seen too many guys that are good at ranged combat,
Yeah, I think this is one of the issues they haven't resolved. Even if the background is archer/poacher and they come with a bow, most of them still have terrible ranged skills. I've gone entire games without finding more than one recruit with a decent ranged skill.
I don't feel too bad admitting, then, that I'd save before recruiting and snap up 5 or 6 people so I could try and find out which had actual archery skills and which were immediate dead weight. Stuffing someone in the front row didn't require much more than the ability to hold a shield. An archer, though... :hawk:
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by dbt1949 »

I gave up on this game.I got like 25 hours in it but I cannot find the right combination of decent troops and enough money.
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LordMortis
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by LordMortis »

Paingod wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 2:47 pm
ColdSteel wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:59 pm
NickAragua wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:27 pm My main problem this run through is that I haven't really seen too many guys that are good at ranged combat,
Yeah, I think this is one of the issues they haven't resolved. Even if the background is archer/poacher and they come with a bow, most of them still have terrible ranged skills. I've gone entire games without finding more than one recruit with a decent ranged skill.
I don't feel too bad admitting, then, that I'd save before recruiting and snap up 5 or 6 people so I could try and find out which had actual archery skills and which were immediate dead weight. Stuffing someone in the front row didn't require much more than the ability to hold a shield. An archer, though... :hawk:
I remember save scumming to find recruits, or more accurately save scumming to not recruit complete garbage. Money is very tight deep in to the game and recruiting someone who is essentially a detriment to the party was no fun for me in this style of game.

I don't remember it being so difficult to find archers or people I didn't mind giving a crossbow (and eventually bow) to. Typically my line was 50/50 with a front line of shield and sword with a few two handers in the middle or on the flank and 50% bow and reach over pole arm units. of that 50% probably half of them started qualified enough to shoot a bow, so I was happy with the native marksman skill of about one in four (that weren't save scummed out).
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

Never bothered me not knowing exactly what I was getting from recruits. I'm obviously in the minority on this though, because the developers are adding in a way to find out more about potential recruits before you hire them. Not sure if this is for the DLC only or if it will be included in a free game update when the DLC goes live.

Also, I admit to save scumming in the past when my best archer died fighting some unwashed bandits on day 100-something.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

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So, after several false starts, I did pretty well in an "ironman" run (with the occasional mysterious "crash to desktop" when I'd encounter a new enemy type for the first time and get the entire company killed). Got up to about day 120, with a war starting up between the noble houses. We got pretty good at hunting down bandits, orcs and the more light-weight undead. With a company roster of ~15 guys and mid-tier armor (mostly chainmail type stuff) and up to third-tier equipment (boar spears, battle axes, arming swords, etc)

In the end, it was a random goblin ambush that did us in. We're walking from one town to another after cleaning out the contracts in the first, and this random band of goblin wolf riders pops up right next to us. Within about three turns, half my guys go down, and then the rest start routing. I think we took down about three out of the twelve.

With three guys left, I didn't feel like re-building the company from scratch so I hit the retire button and got the "company goes down fighting" ending.

I may try another run, and will definitely come back after the expansion comes out. And I finish a run through HBS:Battletech's expansion.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

See? Goblins are assholes.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by NickAragua »

What I need is to hire one of those necromancer guys. "Yeah, go ahead and kill that guy with no shirt on. I dare you."
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

I think it would be fun to have an option to play the game as a necromancer.
That option doesn't appear to be in the upcoming expansion, but fingers crossed it's possible someday.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

My initial thoughts on the new DLC.

The good:
1. More contracts - nice to have more variety.
2. More battle brother backgrounds - nothing game changing. just nice to have.
3. More settlement events - doesn't sound like much, but it adds a lot of needed variety.
4. Tough new monsters. Goblins are still assholes but there is nastier stuff now. Spiders are shits and Unholds are very dangerous in very small numbers.
5. Bigger map is nice. I never really thought the world was too small before but this scale seems better.

The ok;
6. Some of the new weapons and armor don't seem all that useful.
I'm only about 40 days in but the lower tier ones seem to be either too expensive or too risky to use - since most are 2-handers and don't allow a shield. I tend to give my entire front line shields until at least level 7 or so - and my guys are only level 3-5 right now.
7. Crafting recipes - nice to have but this is only a side mechanic at best.
No reliable way to gather ingredients, can only do it in certain town (ones with taxidermist) and what you can make costs a lot of resources for limited benefit. It's fine and generally what I expected. I just wish there was a reliable way to make nets, bandages, and other support items as part of the "make camp" action.

The Bad:
8. Alps (new monster type) are not fun. I understand the intent to create enemies that require different tactics but these will destroy your entire mercenary band the first time you meet them. There are other monsters that will do that too - but the tactics needed to beat them are fun and the fights are challenging. The tactic I found that works on Alps is just tedious.
Tip: don't have your guys stand next to each other - but don't move them more that 1-2 hexes apart. You need to keep them together so they can wake each other up, while you slowly hunt down the Alps that jump around on the edges of the map. Oh, and you only fight them and they seem to be resistant to ranged attacks - so you HAVE to move next to them to attack. It takes forever and if you make a mistake your bros will die in their sleep before you can do anything. Even worse, the contract rewards and loot drops are crap for these fights.

All in all it's easily worth $10 to me.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by NickAragua »

I think this is next on my list after I "finish" Battletech.
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

In case anyone is interested, I have just learned that modders have cracked the .cnut file type for the game.
Mods are now theoretically possible.

My free time is doomed.
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NickAragua
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by NickAragua »

I'm sorry, the what type of file? :lol:
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Archinerd
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by Archinerd »

NickAragua wrote: Thu Jan 24, 2019 11:50 am I'm sorry, the what type of file? :lol:
That has to be intentional, right?
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Re: Battle Brothers (Indie TBS)

Post by NickAragua »

I'm already seeing 12 mods on NexusMods: https://www.nexusmods.com/battlebrother ... +this+week
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