Tips and tricks?
What are some of the things you wish you knew when you started playing? I have 24 hours in this game, I think I’m getting the hang of it but I am also still trash.
Posted Nov 2, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC
1839
Good gear is worth more than any early bro’s life.
Don’t buy weapons until mid-late game, except when a bro would be left unarmed otherwise and then only buy cheap.
Risk lives to do as many contracts and ambitions in as short a time as possible. Don’t rest and buy tools until everything is 100%, it’s not worth it.
Save money for armor.
Watch streamers play instead of explaining things (they will explain them while they play anyway).
16
The strenght of most enemy groups scales (slighty) based in your company size and bros average level, but not their gear - early game buying some decent armor or weapons is a much better investment that hiring yet another barely clothed peasant.
in particular i recommend searching markets for damaged 80 prot padded leather armors - they offer decent protection and damaged gear sells cheap.
(Buying 95 leather lamellar armors in armorsmiths is also ok, but those cost a fair bit more.).
Make sure all your bros have some kind of head protection. Even an straw hat can make quite a difference.
Sell your loot in cities or fortresses - they pay much better than villages. Specially if they have ambushed trade routes, Seasonal fairs, or other such modifiers than increase selling prices.
Repair valuable weapons and armor before selling them - Tier 2 weapons and above are always worth the tool cost.
Remember that you can flee from almost any battle - there is no need to fight anything if your company isn't ready for it.
You can use daggers puncture ability to kill enemies without damaging their armor - after an enemy morale breaks, you can surround them and stab them to death safely, getting their armor intact.
Similar to the above, you can use flails Lash ability to target the head of enemies without helmets, killing them easily and leaving their armor intact.
Spears and swords have extra to-hit accurancy, which makes them good weapons early game when your bros suck and miss a lot. Flails don't have extra accurancy, but they ignore shield protection so they are similary useful.
(Combined with the ability to murder helmetless enemies, this makes flails the best early game weapon).
After your bros get a few levels and start sucking less, upgrade to two handed weapons for much higher DPS.
10
Upgrade all of them to two handed? Are shields not good late game?
4
Shields are never useless, but the much higher damage output of two handers/duelists is generally better.
late game my only shield users are one or two fully dedicated tanks, for specialized tasks such as attracting the attention of lindwurms while my other bros wack them with polearms.
5
Late game, you can also get enough Mdef on your bros to where they can avoid the majority of hits without shields. And then, the hits they do take are braced much better because of nimble/large HP pool or heavy armor/battleforged. Early game, low-level shieldless bros get hit a lot because of low Mdef/surround bonus, and these hits quickly punch through armor and deal injuries, as well as deplete fatigue. The ratio of damage you deal vs damage you brace ends up being higher when you have 2-handers. On top of all that, many weapons can give debuffs, which basically also work to help your defense - like injuries (more likely with high-damage weapons), daze, and stagger.
3
Almost always you will be outnumbered late game which turns the game into a damage/morale race. Shieldbros just dont do well in those situations (aside from 1/2 megatanks that hold 4+ enemies back while the rest of your company starts killing.
3
I have two such tanks, one on each flank. They invaluable.
2
Even earlier, you should note the "Double Grip" 25% damage bonus bros get for equipping a 1h weapon without a shield/net/pot. It significantly increases their damage, (equal to Killing Frenzy).
2
Always check citadels in the early game for damaged tier 3 weapons and cheap armour.
Getting a cheap damaged billhook on day 1 is huge as it makes any crappy starting brother deadly. Billhooks only drop from noble armies so they're a great buy.
7
Number one thing for me is to get an idea of from some build videos of what makes a decent bro stat wise and how stars affect how they level up.
Some of the Filthy’s YouTube videos explain the stats he is looking for in bros to consider them for the late game.
For example for a decent 2H frontliner mid-late game bro you want to get M Att to above 85 and M Def to above 25 or 30.
With no stars you will get on average +20 to both of these stats after 10 levels if you take it each level. So if you have a brother that starts on 55 melee att and has no stars he will not be good enough for late game as he will only get to around 75 attack.
Hope this makes sense :)
3
Shit I still feel like a newb, and played a few hundred hours. Starting ironman right away is a bit brutal but teaches you quickly.
Start with trader origin. Get one nice big city to friendly+ status and make money to get the 210 armor for your best bros right away.
Spears in early game.
Pray to Crom.
2
Trader origin?
2
Er, maybe you lack the Warriors of the north DLC?
That one gives a bunch of different company starts, including a trader caravan one.
5
· You can repair weapons and armour in the blacksmith/armourer by clicking "Alt" if you're in a rush. Note that it cost you more crowns than buying tools.
· have a round shield in your inventory to measure the market prices more efficiently. If the round shield sells for 20 or more then sell your loot, if not, then wait for the next stop.
2
While doing a caravan protection gig, you can click on the cities you got through to interact with them. I learned that here after a 1000 hours. You can also repair armor and weapons at the weapon smith and armorers by hitting alt-right click. You can escape almost anything by hitting flee on the first turn.
2
I'm sure other people have commented on this but just to reinforce, most early game bros are expendable and it's important to view the early game as "trading" bad bros for gear.
That doesn't mean throw them away, try and find a balance between putting them in dangerous positions to protect your good bros while not sentencing them to death. Keeping your good bros alive so they can level up is key to surviving past the first crisis and into the late game.
Don't ever sleep on farmhands or beggers, you can usually find them for insanely cheap and can be surprisingly good for the cost in the early game. I've also had great luck with nomads, barbarians, and raiders when you eventually get enough money to pay for them.
There are a million other tips that I could list off but the fun of the game is finding out what works and what doesn't. Even veteran players with 1000+ hours disagree with each other on many aspects of the game so just focus on learning and having fun.
2
Every bro is replaceable. Your best soldier in the early game is your worst in the endgame. If you trade a man for a shiny new set of armor, or a powerful 2 handed weapon its a good trade. Just make sure you don't do it every battle or your company of newbs will be gutted by the next challenging fight.
1
This isn't entirely accurate. Your starting bros are usually very good, and you don't want to lose them, especially if they picked up some levels. You'll need them to deal damage while your fodder tanks. This does depend on your starting origin, though. It's especially true for Lone Wolf/Gladiators, and somewhat true for poachers/northern raiders/regular start. It's not true for peasant militia and cultist starts, you can start with utter garbage there, luck of the draw.
6
You and I have very different luck then. My starting bros are usually mediocre at best, and eclipsed by the first farmer with good rolls and a + matk or mdef trait.
0
Do you play with the alternative starts that came with WotN expansion? Like w/ poachers, you are guaranteed **Ra on all three of the bros. The hunter is always great, unless you roll crap traits, and poachers are too, unless one is craven. Raiders are usually good too. With regular start, your ranged bro and **Ma bro are usually OK unless they have the right traits, but you're right, can be easily superceded by lucky hires.
4
I've done a variety of starts, northern raider, deserter, and poacher being my favourites. You're right in that they often have good attack stats, i just often find them lacking in other areas, with perhaps 1 of the 3 being unexpendable.
Some.of this may be skewed by the Legends mod and it's dynamic perj trees which can make patching stats harder.
1
Brain damage all pawns and start sacrificing bro's mid-game for the drunkard and hate perks.
1
Hate?
1
Avoid beast contracts in the early game. They're very high risk for very low rewards. Take contracts against Humanoid enemies (bandits, zombies and skeletons) in the early game because you get the benefit of making money from the contract and getting new gear to equip your guys.
Don't buy new gear unless you pretty much have to. Good gear in Battle Brothers is extremely expensive to purchase, you should aim to get all your gear from battling enemies.
Beast contracts are doable if you piggyback onto other friendly parties.
Initial armor could be worth purchasing. A damaged 80 body armor is pretty cheap and improves survivability a lot.
I don't think early beast contracts are more difficult and the trophies they drop often make good gear for the mid game--especially the direwolf mantle--but it depends on which beasts you fight. Gear up appropriately.
Spearwalls are very effective against Nachzehrers, and try to advance your mercenaries onto or drop dogs onto their dead bodies so the other Nachzehrers won't cannibalize and power up.
Direwolves can do a lot of damage to unarmored mercenaries but don't have much armor and hit points. Form a shield wall when they close ranks.
Webnechts have devastating poisons and webs, but they are individually the weakest of all creatures in melee. My battle against them usually begins with unleashing 10 or 11 dogs to soften them up. Even a wardog will usually win in a pure melee against a webnecht. If possible, try to draw Webnechts out of the woods and into hills or plains. They are harder to fight in the woods.
Try to bleed Unholds with whips and cleavers. Cleavers are an excellent weapon against most enemies in the beast faction due to their low armor.
I won't take on Alps without a full kennel of dogs to unleash against them as well, and avoid Hexes entirely in Ironman mode.
It just depends on how familiar you are with the game. Beasts tend to be tricky because while they don't have much armor/HP they compensate by swarming in large numbers and being able to do large amounts of damage in a single turn. For experienced players early nach, direwolf and spider fights can be easy, but for players who aren't very knowledgeable about what strategies work best those fights can be extremely punishing if you don't have 115 armor as a safety net.
I don't think you can really afford to throw that many dogs in the early game, though I do think attacking beasts is usually okay if there's nothing better going. For me leveling quickly is the best way out of the early game because once you can reliably hit stuff then you can actually start using diverse strategies and not just stand there begins shields and hope to outlast the enemy.
I had 6 dogs for 6 men by day seven of the Beast Slayers Veteran Ironman campaign I'm currently playing. A day later, they completed a 1000 crown Alp contract that was rated 3 stars difficulty. I unequipped everyone's shields before the fight since they are pointless against Alps and afford more damage from double grip.
One mercenary did lose an eye in the fight, but in a coincidence I'm sure would have delighted Rocket Raccoon, a third eye was found in the victory spoils.
Beast types sometimes have a trick to defeating them that make for lucrative, predictable contracts.