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The Lord Bude posted:Assuming you’re playing peasants; Keep the good ones; fire the bad ones. Stay out of the city states until you’re in raider mail at least. Can you give some advice on the good ones? I whittled it down to 7 before I headed out, but am not sure I chose the right ones.
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Aug 18, 2020 14:38
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Around mid-game, serpent contracts start mixing in some Lindwurms to keep you on your toes  Also I cleared the new legendary location (Sunken Library) on Beginner, here are some spoilers: You fight Undead, the leader being "The Lorekeeper" who is really not too worrisome on his own, but he comes with a giant entourage of undead. There are also about 10 or so Phylacteries scattered around the (large) map. Most of them are unreachable until you kill The Lorekeeper once. When he dies, he immediately respawns at full health in place of one of the Phylacteries. So you need to spread men around the map -> kill him once -> smash all the phylacteries -> kill him again I would say it was overall easier than other legendary location fights, but again this was on Beginner. The reward is... The Necronomicon. It does nothing at first but after a while I got an event where it was driving one of my brothers insane and he got the Mad trait (+/- 15 resolve randomly at every morale check, but immune to fear and mind control). Later on another event pops up where you get to exchange the book for a reward; either 50k gold, a couple potions that give +1 perk point, or a legendary shield that dazes anyone who strikes it. That last one sounds pretty amazing and it's what I chose but I haven't had a chance to mess around with it deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 14:59
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Bruxism posted:Can you give some advice on the good ones? I whittled it down to 7 before I headed out, but am not sure I chose the right ones. Sigbold is a decent shieldbro; although the matk is only just good enough. His stamina is really good though. Take matk and stamina every level up; and take the higher roll of either resolve or health for the third. You’ll want him to end up with 100hp (after colossus bonus) - that’s 4 max rolls. Then you want to get his resolve up - I generally take fortified mind on most shieldbros; so around 4 max rolls ought to do it; plus the fortified mind to get him above 50 resolve. And leftover can go into melee defence. You can also run him through the arena till he gets the +5 resolve buff. Magnus is an ok sergeant - peasant armies need 2 of them because your line is too wide for one rally to affect everyone; so it’s ok for one of them to be a tad mediocre. I take gifted; colossus and fortified mind on my sergeants. You want resolve and matk as high as possible of course. Health at a minimum of 75 after colossus; and the rest in stamina. He already has very good starting stamina for someone who’ll be using nimble and light armor on the back line so it’s ok not to raise it every level. 120-130 is enough. Oskar; Alberich and Horik are good ranged bros - none of them are quite good enough to be bowmen but you can make them either gunners or throwers. Alberich should probably be a gunner since his stamina is low even by archer standards and gunners are the least stamina dependant of the ranged builds; also his health is very low so you won’t get to 75 without colossus and gunners are the only ranged build with room for colossus in my opinion. I’d probably make Oskar a gunner as well and Horik as a thrower. Gunners need a higher resolve than other ranged units if you want to use them to apply the fearsome debuff. Leif has very good attack; but his stamina is marginal - to me that says polearm Bernfried is the final good one - he’s an interesting case. His super high attack puts him in a position to potentially be a two hander bro; but his stamina is on the low side for that. You could make him a 2hander anyway; and give him a less stamina dependant weapon like a 2h mace; but the other issue is his low resolve - by the time you get it up to scratch you won’t have many level up points left to put in melee defence. Alternatively he’d be an amazing shield bro; but it would be a bit of a waste of his high attack. I’d favour making him a polearm user.
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Aug 18, 2020 15:19
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deep dish peat moss posted:Around mid-game, serpent contracts start mixing in some Lindwurms to keep you on your toes Wonder if there's any special events if you get that with the Cultists.
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Aug 18, 2020 16:20
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I finally have a decent enough bro to have a dedicated greatsword guy. It pretty much rules. In the past I've been too timid to take the risk of having a front liner without a shield, but with adrenaline I can have him run out and flank wayyy easier. Is Reach Advantage worth taking? seems like it would be good if this guy is doing AOE attacks on the flanks.
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Aug 18, 2020 16:43
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punishedkissinger posted:I finally have a decent enough bro to have a dedicated greatsword guy. It pretty much rules. In the past I've been too timid to take the risk of having a front liner without a shield, but with adrenaline I can have him run out and flank wayyy easier. Is Reach Advantage worth taking? seems like it would be good if this guy is doing AOE attacks on the flanks. Yes, reach advantage is very good. My typical perk list for a 2hander is: Student Colossus Brawny Weapon Mastery Underdog Battleforged Footwork Beserk Killing Frenzy Reach advantage That being said, I generally don't use greatswords any more - Between the nerf, and the addition of the Bardiche, I generally run a mix of 2h Hammers and Bardiches unless I happen to find a named greatsword.
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Aug 18, 2020 16:47
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RA is decent but I usually prefer other choices for survivability like Steel Brow due to the occasional crossbow bolt to the face
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Aug 18, 2020 17:00
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I replace Colossus with Steel Brow for protection against Man With Crossbow. If they get past the 2h guy's armour he's probably dead anyway.
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Aug 18, 2020 17:07
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RabidWeasel posted:RA is decent but I usually prefer other choices for survivability like Steel Brow due to the occasional crossbow bolt to the face I used to take steel brow, until I read this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001196860 Basically Steel brow is mathematically inferior to Colossus; and the changing meta has made large health pools more necessary due to the large number of enemies that have high damage ignoring armour values. If you only intend to take one or the other; you should take Colossus. It's still a good perk, and you could take both, but I think Reach advantage is better than steel brow as well and if you take too many defensive perks you lower your offensive capability too much - I could only justify 2 of them. dogstile posted:I replace Colossus with Steel Brow for protection against Man With Crossbow. If they get past the 2h guy's armour he's probably dead anyway. Steel brow is a colossus that only protects you 25% of the time. With more and more enemies being able to do significant health damage through armour, you're better off taking colossus and amping up the health pool of your bros. Edit: I'd probably consider steel brow instead of reach advantage on a 2h Maceman since he'll only be hitting once per turn. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 17:13
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punishedkissinger posted:Is Reach Advantage worth taking?  It's okay. Ok to be fair that was a result of two great axe round swings while completely surrounded by orcs, but still.
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Aug 18, 2020 17:14
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ive been playing the cultist origin and its funny that a lot of what it changes are just like the standard cultist events with one extra line at the end quote:One of your guys does something really horrifying and weird, in praise of a strange god he called Davkul.
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Aug 18, 2020 17:26
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Overwhelm seems like it would be good on Polearm guys or Bowmen since bows can take multiple shots. Is this correct?
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Aug 18, 2020 17:30
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Polearms for overwhelm are situational, but I do find overwhelm core for dedicated archers. Polearm users tend to have higher initiative due to less equipment but can only apply one stack of overwhelm to one foe per turn under normal circumstances, which is kind of meh. However, scythes and the new swordlance have the reap (or w/e) that hits three targets and works well for applying overwhelm to multiples. Overwhelm works best when stacked, either through multiple bros having it or having bros capable of applying multiples in a single turn. Daggers, when mastered, are awesome for overwhelm as one bro can apply three stacks every turn
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Aug 18, 2020 17:36
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What minimum Melee Defense should a brother have before graduating from shieldbearer to full-time 2H Man?
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Aug 18, 2020 18:15
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punishedkissinger posted:Overwhelm seems like it would be good on Polearm guys or Bowmen since bows can take multiple shots. Is this correct? i take it on my bowmen and also pump their initiative and even if your arrows can't do much to a specific group you're attacking, the overwhelm can apply to more than one guy - so if you shoot it into the center mass of several guys it can tag more than one with overwhelm, as such i'm actually a pretty big fan of it since it can do quite a bit of debuffing also it's nice to be able to tag the big beasties with an attack debuff.
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Aug 18, 2020 18:25
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Jay Rust posted:What minimum Melee Defense should a brother have before graduating from shieldbearer to full-time 2H Man? IMO 30 Mdef is a good benchmark, but mid to high 20s is decent for a start too. With those numbers, my 2h have been faring quite well against northern armies, slapping down footmen and dodging polearms. For newer players trying to determine what a good bros stats are, heres my two cents. When looking for bros, have in mind a role from the get-go, 2h melee, shield, polearm, thrower, bow, xbow/gunner statswise: 2h bro - most important stats - MA, starting high 50s with stars, MD 5-10 stars, health 60+ stars. 100+ fatigue, 35+ resolve to hit at least 50, Rdef to 10-15 with extra placements shieldbro - not quite good enough to be a 2h, MA 50s with stars, MD helpful, health 50+ stars, fatigue more important polearm - high MA, lacking in mdef, health. can be either light armor nimble, overwhelm or heavy armor, battleforged, rotate. quickhands with whips provides some more utility to finish weak enemies and come into fights with free hands for throwables. Pick light or heavy based on starting fatigue over/under 100 and initiative over/under 100 thrower - specialist RA for high damage, RA high 40s with stars, initiative 100+, health useful, fatigue, Rdef and Mdef in that order. Haven't tried a dedicated thrower myself yet, duelist/throwing spec bow - RA high 40s with 3star, initiative 100+, health useful, fatigue, Rdef and Mdef in that order. Overwhelm/fearsome. xbow/gunner - RA 50s with 1-3 star, initiative 100+, health useful, fatigue, Rdef and Mdef in that order. Overwhelm/fearsome. Doesn't need to have quite as high RA. guys in melee - high health and Mdef are essential to their long term survival. 100+ health and 30+mdef are good numbers to shoot for. MA over 80 is endgame potential, in the 90s will paste most enemies Resolve should be no less than 40 on anyone, 50+ on melee edited: RA was too high Moonshine Rhyme fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Aug 19, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 19:07
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The Lord Bude posted:I used to take steel brow, until I read this: The difference with steel brow and other options is that steel brow comes into play when you have a streak of bad luck (i.e. suffering consecutive headshots) which is when you need some extra sturdiness, RA makes you less likely to get hit at all by melee attacks which is useful for surviving tougher fights in general but doesn't help when the RNG decides it hates you. Colossus is kind of a must have to me so I'm not even considering avoiding it for something else.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:27
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Jay Rust posted:What minimum Melee Defense should a brother have before graduating from shieldbearer to full-time 2H Man? Atleast 25 and preferably up to the late 30s at final level.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:55
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redreader posted:Decided I'm sick of dying and starting from scratch. I'm now saving before fights and it's a more-fun game, and I'm getting further. I just lost a guy though, I'm not into minmaxing so if I lose someone, lesson learned. It seems like this game is just too hard to be played like xcom? I suppose my main issue and the thing that kills me is, I don't know what to expect exactly from each enemy when it comes to their build, like 'is enemy x high damage, or high armour?'. Like I think it went from brigands-> raiders (or the other way 'round) and suddenly they were wearing mail. Also with the southern guys, IDK what all of those enemy types are, and I just got my entire party destroyed by a couple of southern guys I just could not even hit, and a whip guy. Battle Brothers has far fewer ways to come back from losing several high level bros. Your top tier guys are much more irreplaceable in this game than in XCOM. Also, each new mid/late enemy has a serious gimmick that can wipe your squad if you approach it wrong without knowing it. It doesn't even try to ease you into the enemy progression like XCOM. Battle Brothers isn't a good ironman game, through it is a good game.
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Aug 18, 2020 20:20
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The irreplacability of high level troops is a problem the RPG/strategy hybrid genre just doesn't seem to solve and it feels like something you just have to live with.
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Aug 18, 2020 20:25
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I mean, battle brothers certainly tries, with the potions and training halls. The problem is that by then that new brother absolutely cannot be anywhere near an enemy and needs to be in the heaviest armour so they don't get killed by man with crossbow the second a ranged guy sees your low rdef guy. dogstile fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 21:12
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hello i'm still doing peasant things, who shoots things as a peasant all i find are poachers and i try not to hire them cos their starting attack is so bad
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Aug 18, 2020 21:15
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Every time I read something like, "here's what you need for an Archer/2 hander/whatever build", it names impossible stat and star combinations that I've never seen before. Most of my recruits are trash.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:23
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I got super into this game back near launch and sunk probably just north of 100 hours into it and i don't think i ever made it to the first crisis. I'm familiar with some of the tactical gameplay from playing XCOM but the world map, economy and judging if bro's are worth it were stumbling blocks. I have the base game, no DLC purchased (but open to it if significant QOL improvements), and would like to give this whole thing another try. is the Hieronymous Alloy guide and second post newbie guide applicable? What are some other core central concepts to understand or that should be paid attention too? What is an ideal early game skills/equipment mix that i can work toward that will carry me through the first crisis? I am too afraid to try Lone Wolf/Militia starts since you need to play with the games auto-scaling to make it work. I understand conceptually keeping a small number of high quality guys. How do I identify high quality bros? what are the stat break even points? how do you judge if someone will be +/- 90ish range at a low level e: several posts above me is a good starting point >.< Waroduce fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 18, 2020 21:29
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I typically just go with "bro's on the front line need to have a fairly decent amount of melee" (which is anything north of 50 with a star) and then enough fatigue to get them into the 70 range, even if i take brawny as a perk to get them there. Same with archers. I have moderate success. I also save scum new hires in my newer saves though, nothing worse than spending 1k on a dude and realising all his fighting stats are in the 40's and all his stars are in init, rdef and resolve.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:33
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I think if you subtract 20-30 points from the stats listed in the 'ideal build' listings you'll get kinda what looks like a raw recruit's stats. Moonshine Rhyme earlier posted a decent one because he actually lists a level 1 recruit's ideal stats instead of the final product. I think folks are overly conservative with the Mdef requirements to switch over to a two-hander weapon. High teens to mid-20s is more than enough for them to handle lower-level enemies, and the extra damage will let you zoom through them with minimal expense. Weapons with reach are even better for this switchover because you can hide behind the shield wall. So don't freak about 'minimum 30 Mdef', once they've got a shield's worth of defense you can start using those weapons. Also, decent bros are totally good enough for like... 75% to 90% of the game. Take any of those ideal stats, drop it by 10-20% and that's a totally useful and effective bro that'll stand up to most foes. Ok, it won't survive THE MONOLITH but poo poo that stuff's the frosting on top of a tasty game-cake that everyone ignores because it's not shiny dragon-shaped frosting. Also, regarding trash recruits, I think the other thing that's not mentioned is how many dudes you go through to get a decent one. Literally a half-dozen mercs who will do nothing but hold a spear, shield, and die in order to allow one of those star players to advance far enough that they don't die.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:41
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Yeah, if you want to get used to losing dudes to the manhunter start. It truly teaches you how to value the lives of your troops. Good ones in, bad ones out. Don't sweat it if you lose a bad bro who's somehow stayed alive for a few levels, a good one will outpace him very quickly. E: Also the Arena should totally pay you even if your recruits die.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:44
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golden bubble posted:Battle Brothers has far fewer ways to come back from losing several high level bros. Your top tier guys are much more irreplaceable in this game than in XCOM. Also, each new mid/late enemy has a serious gimmick that can wipe your squad if you approach it wrong without knowing it. It doesn't even try to ease you into the enemy progression like XCOM. Battle Brothers isn't a good ironman game, through it is a good game. This is kinda where I came to on it. Trying to Ironman this game successfully seems to just mandate being extremely conservative with fight selection, and the experience suffers when you're going out of your way to avoid anything that might pose an interesting challenge.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:51
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V. Illych L. posted:hello i'm still doing peasant things, who shoots things as a peasant I think poachers are the best you can get. I’m Day 50 in my peasant run and haven’t found a hunter. Witchhunters might be available, maybe?
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Aug 18, 2020 21:59
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Waroduce posted:how do you judge if someone will be +/- 90ish range at a low level The FilthyRobot (Twitch/YouTube) rule is you add 20 to the level 1 stat and add 5 for every star. So a bro with 3 MAtkstars at 55 can expect to get up to around 90 MAtk. 20 from 10 levels averaging 2 pts each if you pump it every level. So yeah, you do have to put in the 1s and 2s for this to be accurate.
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Aug 18, 2020 22:03
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El Spamo posted:Also, decent bros are totally good enough for like... 75% to 90% of the game. Take any of those ideal stats, drop it by 10-20% and that's a totally useful and effective bro that'll stand up to most foes. Great post overall and I wanted to highlight this bit. You can experience the majority of content in this game with mostly "bad" to mediocre stat bros and 2-3 star bros doing the heavy lifting. The bad ones will get filtered out over time by death and the good ones you need to save scum until your company is rich and has veterans. This game absolutely takes a couple tries to see what works and what doesn't because of the sheer number of little decisions you make that snowball towards success or failure, and even then it can be a crapshoot if you get a bad job or ambushed by 20 goblins
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Aug 18, 2020 22:11
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Okay, started over with a southern company on seed Legolas (it's nice!) and making a point to stock up on firelances early on and I get it - I was able to blast away a 12-man nomad cutthroat group on day 2 with 6 guys and 3 firelances. They also wreck beasts and can help clutch early arena fights. I think the Blazing Desert build meta may migrate more towards flexibility and utility through bags+belts/quick hands to use as many gimmicks as possible. On top of adding firearms and grenades, the DLC has really upped the availability of certain older things too by stocking nets in each city-state and nomads using whips and three-headed flails with a lot more regularity than you'd see them before. I'm finally able to field three or four guys with whips in the backline after a few weeks - previously, I felt like it always took me around 30-60 days to even find one whip for sale at a weaponsmith and even then, hard pressed to cough up the 650g or w/e right when I'm in the middle of the heavy armor upgrading grind
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Aug 18, 2020 23:24
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V. Illych L. posted:hello i'm still doing peasant things, who shoots things as a peasant Best you can hope for is a poacher with 48-49 rattack with 2-3 stars. I find 2 stars and 47-49 attack "good enough." You can't really expect much better having access to only peasant backgrounds. Jay Rust posted:I think poachers are the best you can get. I’m Day 50 in my peasant run and haven’t found a hunter. Witchhunters might be available, maybe? Nope, just poachers and shepherds who seem to be even more of a gamble than poachers.
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Aug 19, 2020 00:17
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Ok, Serpents are just a bit too strong. They have too high MA and defenses for how early in the game you are supposed to fight them. I hope they go back and maybe nerf their stats a little bit, because as it is, it's nearly never worth fighting them. Early game they rip your guys to shreds before you can kill them, and late game they're kind of pointless.
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Aug 19, 2020 00:34
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Broken Cog posted:Ok, Serpents are just a bit too strong. They have too high MA and defenses for how early in the game you are supposed to fight them. there are tricks to taking out serpents without losing anyone - trying to shieldwall will just get someone surrounded and killed. If you charge in to them once they get 2 squares away (their grab range) you focus them down without losing people most of the time (it turns into a kind of an Armored Weiderganger situation at that point - they can hit really hard, but only attack once each round). They are definitely hard, and you have to engage them, you can't shieldwall and wait for them to engage you, and you have to surround them even it means engaging without getting in an attack. They usually won't grab anyone if they're engaged, but they still hit hard. (I stand by my earlier estimation that they either have backstabber inherently, pushing their gang up bonus to 10% from the very beginning which is a lot of +hit if they can surround one bro) or they get a big attack bonus against someone who is isolated as a monster only perk. If you can keep them from surrounding someone, their hit chance drops significantly (they still hit extremely hard when they do attack, though, and I think their fangs have high penetration as well) so they can one shot low level bros if they get a lucky hit in. I've regularly managed to beat them with level 1-3 bros without losing anyone.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:07
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You can take on groups of 2-3 serpents at low levels, but if you run into one of the 6-serpent groups, what usually happens is you'll engage with 3-4 on their front lines, then the remaining ones are gonna pull your frontliners behind their lines, and nuke them down with 3-4 surrounded attacks before you can push through and rescue them. I can beat these groups, but they consistently kill 1-2 bros every fight, and it doesn't feel like there's much I can do about it.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:18
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Treat them like man with crossbow. If they hit a dude in the head and that dude has lovely head armour, it's a one shot.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:19
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For everybody talking about not knowing stats, what the experienced players are talking about in here tend to be max level stats, so what the bro will be at by level 11. Here's how you calculate that. Each stat gets either 1-3 or 2-4 points every level. MAtk and MDef get 1-3, RAtk, RDef, Health, Fatigue, Resolve, and Initiative get 2-4. If a stat gets a one star talent, it gets +1 to the minimum roll. A 1-3 stat becomes 2-3 and a 2-4 stat becomes 3-4. If a stat gets a two star talent, it always rolls the maximum. A 1-3 stat is always 3 and a 2-4 stat is always 4. If a stat gets a three star talent, it gets +2 to the minimum and +1 to the maximum roll. A 1-3 stat becomes 3-4 and a 2-4 stat becomes 4-5. Knowing that, you can calculate how many points, on average, a stat will get over ten levelups, if you took that stat every single time no matter what it was. A 1-3 stat, on average, tops out at +20. With one star, on average it tops out at +25. With two stars, it will always get +30. With three stars, on average it will get +35. A 2-4 stat, on average, gets +30. With one star, on average it gets +35. With two stars, it always gets +40. With three stars, on average it gets +45. If someone says "I want my 2-handers to end up with 85 MAtk and 30MDef and 120 Fatigue", you can use these formulas to see whether a new bro will end up there. A 60 MAtk level 1 bro, but with no stars, will probably end up around 80 MAtk. A 50 MAtk level 1 bro with three stars will probably end up around 85 MAtk. That bro will be less useful straight off the bat but would likely overtake the other one over time. I tend to be pretty selective with my bros but I use these formulas to see who's going to hit 80+ attack skills and so on. They won't stop you from getting screwed by a bunch of +1 MAtk and +2 Fatigue rolls in a row, but they'll let you know who's likely to end up good or bad. Of course this all only matters if your bros are surviving more than a couple levels 
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Aug 19, 2020 02:03
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Considering you want 50+ resolve, as much melee defense as possible, as much fatigue as possible, and as much health as possible, I feel like going for melee attack every level up isn’t practical for most bros
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Aug 19, 2020 02:23
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Jay Rust posted:Considering you want 50+ resolve, as much melee defense as possible, as much fatigue as possible, and as much health as possible, I feel like going for melee attack every level up isn’t practical for most bros Oh yeah don't get me wrong I don't actually take those stats every time, with a few rare exceptions (archers need every RAtk they can get for example), I'll tend to skip any +1s, even in key stats, to go for whatever got a high roll so that my bros end up well-rounded. But that's how you calculate roughly where a bro can or will end up after ten levels.
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Aug 19, 2020 02:30
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