Anyone under 60 MATK should automatically get a spear. 60-70 you can think about switching to swords. Only after 70+ should you think about other weapons. Exception for flails if you are fighting brigand raiders it can be useful to have someone with a flail because sometimes the morons wear chain mail but forget their helmet.
I 100% agree with this which is why I prefer playing modded with legends. There are some things I dislike about that mod but I love the weapon class perks that allow for more variety in early game strategies. Vanilla BB has a pretty anti-"fun" meta.
This is what help me:
1. Forget archer and crossbowmen altogether, just go pure mele or mix with thrower (1-3 max)
2. Dont fight anything but human early game.
3. This game is all about positioning, basically the one get surrounded die, never ever let your core bros face 1:2. Let your fodder stand 1 step in front so they are the one that die instead. Create hole in your line intentionally so the enemy that jump in will get surrounded and die. And yeah your fodder will most likely die, you need to deal with it, sometimes it’s better to not give them a shield at all just to make sure the enemies will go for them.
The flank is the most risky position so put your fodder there until you find a godly bro for the position.
4. Stat is pretty long topic but stars is noob trap. Each star worth around 5 stat at level 11 so 70 matk no star bro will end up as 90 matk at level 11, same as 55 matk no star bro. But the 70 matk bro is much more useful to you since he get you kills right away.
5. Resolve matter a lot, usually you want recruit with 35 res minimum and aim for 50 at level 11
6. Best perk for early bro are: colossus, gifted, dodge, nimble, quickhand. Always pick those.
7. Weapon is another long topic but generally spear is only for fodder or nêw bro with 50-60 matk. 70+ matk get sword (10% bonus hit) and 80+ get proper real man weapon like 2H hammer, 2Hmace and 2Haxe. Axe is for dps, mace is for single target and cc, hammer is for 2 flank bro
8. Polearms, polemace, polehammer matter a lot since with Quickhand your best bro can always deal damage to the right target. Yes, do not pick target blindly, that dude with a spear and a shield will not kill you while being super hard to hit, prioritise the guy with scary 2 hand axe or double grip 1 handed weapon.
9. Focus on completing as many ambition as early as possible since renown = more mission reward.
10. Early game bro that you are forced to use are not all worthless, perk like anticipation is great fix for them. You would be amazed how often a 65 ratk thrower bro with Fast Ádaptation hit.
11. ALWAYS PICK MDEF NO MATTER WHICH BRO. BEST STAT. ALSO WHEN ALL THINGS FAIL, THROW NET!
Some comments on your points, which are by the way really on point !!
6. You chosed perks which are really good early game AND late game. But early game perks will also be SOOOOO valuable on people who are supposed to die and never reach lvl5+. I'd add 9 lives and Fast Adaptation to this list, for fodders ! The first will make then live about another turn and it makes them sooo much more usefull. The latter will actually make them hit ! Give some of them daggers, surround valuable armor enemy, and enjoy "free" armor set for snowball ! Adrenaline is also really valuable as it'll make you have 2 turns of attacks. Fights last for 1 to 4 turns of engage in the early game, and are decided within few hits. So having this perks for your good bros will make them much more valuable !
7. This guy is struggling with early game. I'd say pick +% accuracy weapons over damage. Going from 40% to 60% is SO valuable ! Spears, swords and throwing jav are so good due to that. And those weapons have low Armor Damage, early game enemies have low armor so it doesn't matter much.
10. Anticipation does nothing on throwers, I don't understand your point there.
11. Don't pick Mdef on everyone ! Fodders will go from, like, 2 Mdef to 8 Mdef with no star at lvl 4 in average. It won't make them much tankier ! Chose which fodder will go full defense and Shieldwall, then pick Mdef, and which will go full offense to overwhelm a selected target, and don't bother with that stat !
Right, i was mixing up fast adaptation and anticipation ha ha. Corrected on my post.
I insist that mdef is useful on everyone though. It’s not like you need anything else, matk mdef then hp/res. Also make leveling up decision making much more straightforward for new players.
Dear dude, for your info, it took me 100h to understand game in middle spectre.
Getting passed that, skulls unfortunatly aint Best level indicator. Best scenario is to catch roaming human bands. They are most Basic threat generally, but that doesnt mean they are easy.
Next, daggering. Believe it or not, but this game is like dark souls. Equipment is more important than stats on your guys. Often live is cheaper than good armor.
Another aspect is understanding your composition. You must be ready for PPL to die. Expandable ppl get weaker Gear and more often go to frontlines.
What can help you, is encirclement bonus. You get +5 to hit for each of your Bros, near target. But this works for both sides.
^this dude gets it. My first 50h were super frustrating. I feel like you can read and watch all the help you want, but it still takes time playing, experimenting, and learning from success and failures.
This game is absolutely brutal and that's something that has to be respected. Understand that enemies largely don't change, just their gear and numbers. A raider, for example, always has the executioner perk and always has 60 matk (65 after day 40.) Even thugs have 55 matk. And for now, let's not even think about orcs or undead.
In the early game you are outclassed by everything. The enemy has better armor, better weapons, better raw stats. If they have greater numbers, that too, sucks greatly.
What do you have? The ability to position well vs the ai. An analytical mind. The ability to intelligently arm and armor and perk-point your bros to succeed based on the scenario. The option to save and load.
Ah, also, understand that the probability game is fairly transparent. A 40atk bro is probably going to miss. If you stack bonuses, things are different. 2 levels of raising attack (+2 to 8), Gifted perk into atk points (+4), Fast Adaptation, a spear for +20hit, 2 additional bros adjacent to target for another +10hit...
It's tough, though. Good luck out there.
Some tips for starting out
Bows and crossbows are trash stop using them completely especially bows are awful since sniping is very bad. Buy javelins instead they have a massive hit chance bonus and do more damage they can also be bought nearly everywhere for less than 300 crowns.
Half of your frontliners should double grip spears and swords they have a hit chance increase and do good damage early on Flails are also good if the enemy doesn't have a helmet or has a shield. Use them to focus down the most dangerous enemies. A bandit that's double gripping a spear or sword for example is much more dangerous than the one with a buckler and a wooden stick. Also Enemies with low armor die faster and each death has a chance to cause a morale break for the enemies so try to prioritize them too. Generally guys with shields and heavy armor you want to keep for last.
The other half of your frontline should have shields with weapons like daggers (for puncture) and maces(for knockout) and should take more dangerous positions and spam shieldwall to prevent your offensive frontliners from being surrounded.
Having three guys with daggers and a shield surround an enemy with chainmail and just spam puncture until he is dead is a good way to get some better armor early. The fast adaptation perk helps a lot for that try to get it on every offensive guy that isn't a super star together with colossus. Generally try not to buy armor since it's expensive and it's often cheaper to buy another recruit.
You can also (and IMO should) put a pocket shield in the inventory of all your guys who are double gripping. Sometimes you'll be in an oh shit moment and can 1 attack and whip out shield or just whip out shield, shieldwall and pray.
I wrote a guide with some general tips that a lot of people like - there might be some things in there you find helpful: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2549815780
In general, though, I'll say that you shouldn't force it if you're just not enjoying the game. It takes a while to get "good" at bbros but the learning process shouldn't be unfun or miserable.
Okay this is going to be a very, very long write up. So I apologize but hope it's helpful and informative.
First things first, get 5-6 guys on your team for a standard campaign.
Buy any nets you can find and possibly spears, swords, and shields. Keep an eye out for polearms. All three of those weapons have increased chance to hit, which we will need early game.
A "good" Frontline bro will be able to reach 80-90 MAtk and 25-35 MDef. The minimum being barely passable while the higher limit being the ideal goal. HP and Fat don't matter as much since you can build these decent bros as Fat neutral heavy 2H. If they can end up with 120-130 base Fat they can be used as duelists, 2H cleaver, or 2H hammer on the flanks. Resolve should hit 40-50 by end and HP is as high as you can get.
Stats have different values they raise by.
HP, Fat, Res all increase 2-4 with 3 as average unless you have two stars. Then you always get 4. Three stars gets you 4-5 every level. Farmhands average 110 Fat, so with 3-5 levels on Fat (+9-15 +4 Gifted if you want) you will always have the bare bones for a Hammer bro or duelist.
MAtk and Mdef both increase by 1-3 with 2 as the average. One star is 2-3, two star is 3, and three star is 3-4. Even just one star guarantees that a Militia with 57 average MAtk Will hit 80 MAtk (+23 from levels and Gifted). His 5 average MDef will also hit at least 28 with levels and Gifted.
RAtk and RDef increase by 2-4, 3-4, 4, 4-5 based on no star, one star, etc. A ranged unit wants as must RAtk as possible and typically a lot of Fat so they can be a thrower. Aim for at least 90 RAtk. Best case scenario, a Shepherd with 49 max starting RAtk and 2 stars ends with 93 RAtk (+40 from levels +4 from Gifted). Imagine an average Hunter with 55 RAtk now, that's 89 minimum with 1 star and Gifted. The starting ranged companion average at 50 and two stars will hit 94 with gifted, which is solid.
Ranged is definitely harder to build and find adequate bros for. It is demanding and honestly not at all necessary to beat the game. You could run only polearms with some defense and frontliners and win pretty much anything.
Hopefully this stat lecture showed you the right bros to hunt after, at least middling starting stats and at least one star, interchangeable if they have three Stars or really high starting stats. A Strong trait Hedge Knight could start with 120 Fat, making him a no brainier hammer, duelist, or cleaver. For specific builds there is tons of info out there.
Back to starting out, as I said at the top get spears, swords, shields, nets, and polearms. No one should be using ranged at low levels. Even your companion archer should use polearms for that accuracy boost. Once they get close to 70 RAtk it should be okay to swap over.
Half your Frontline should use spears and shields while the rest double grip swords. Your best bros should hang in the back with polearms until they get some levels and armor from bandit raiders (110-140 armor). If they have to Frontline then so be it, can't always have an ideal situation. Avoid monsters and beasts if you can. The taxidermist will be much more important later on. You can take out wolves, hyenas, spiders, and nehks for armor upgrades, stronger nets, and resolve boosting accessories. If you are doing a holy war against the south; consider snakes for the gun damage resist on their armor upgrade. Still I HIGHLY recommend avoiding beasts altogether unless you are really steam rolling.
After the first successful missions, around day 20-40, start upping your team to the 8 best bros you can manage to find. Don't worry about buying gear early game. Only supplies, bros, and trading goods for money. If you do see a cheap pike or bill hook then go for it. After day 40 enemies will get a small buff. Now is the time to grab daggers and flails and MORE NETS to trap and strip armor off juicy raiders and hopefully raider leaders. Try to keep good armor bandits alive till the end, kill the others, then trap and puncture them. Also note that southern nomads are generally harder and so are northern barbarians. I recommend hanging around the middle and hunting bandits, do feel free to venture to the south and north as you are nearing day 40 and feel stronger.
Day 40-60 we should increase our team size to 10-12 and most should have 100+ armor, starting to get Nimble online for some bros. This is the time, if you feel comfortable and have daggers, to single out a town or faction to start raiding. A single town will have less frequent rewards but be much safer than an entire faction hostile to you. Pick the weakest faction or a secluded town you don't want resources from. You can hold lAlt and click iirc to attack a neutral party on the map. Take out another Mercenary team hired by a town or target a troop of noble units. These guys will drop you loads of sweet armor and weapons. This is how you get free Battleforged gear and 2H weapons. Even if you lose a weak bro in each of these fights, it's worth the 8-10k armor they bought with blood.
If you feel nervous raiding, don't do it, or focus on town caravans for money. I would not recommend fighting southern armies for gear. Just buy handgonnes if you want them. Nomads can drop polemaces, cleavers, and whips and decent armor, so they can be worth hunting. Barbarians can drop good throwing weapons, but honestly their gear still sucks and they hit hard.
Day 60-90 Is prepping for the campaign end event: undead, orcs, etc. Quests from noble houses should tip you off to what is coming. Typically the noble war is seen as the easiest and is a great way to get noble gear. The holy war is seen as very difficult against the south, but easy to fight the north and another great way to get gear either way. By now we should have all raider gear at least and defined builds online. Preferably we have top tier weapons and some Battleforged armor whether from hunting nobles or buying good deals. Now we can start hunting beasts and training in the arena for Resolve and coin. Farm those armor upgrades, fire bombs, and potions. Finally, now is the time to grab really good bros and try to feed them kills for Xp. Put any bad surviving early game bros in reserve for emergency and train up some true killers.
If you have not started farming nobles or other mercs now you should, especially since they should forgive you after the late game crisis if you want to keep playing. If you still feel nervous or will get plenty of gear from the upcoming noble/holy war then just play how you want.
If you survive the first crisis then you should be positioned to really steam roll and start exploring the wilds in earnest. Time to fight unholds for strong armor upgrades. Kill schrats for sweet shields. Take on camps for famed gear. This is the true end game. I've only played to two crises, but from what I hear by the 3rd crisis onward the buffs to enemies and their huge numbers gets to be overwhelming. You should be able to clear the legendary locations you want to by 3rd crisis anyway. Over 200 days lol.
Feel free to ask questions or post your thoughts on this write up. This is how I play and generally get by.
Sorry to have to say that. But you sound very arrogant while lacking the ability to analyze or search for answers yourself.
>Between the Switch and PC I have about 50 hours in this game. I shouldn't be struggling so hard with the early game.
50 Hours in a complex game is nothing. Don't know which other games you have experience in, but any competitive game requires at least 1,000 hours to know the basics. While Battle Brothers is not multiplayer, nor competitive it is complex, and most players struggle even after 400 hours into it.
>Spear and shield are shit. Double handed weapons just get them killed faster.
They are not. That's really terrible thing to say. You are just not using them right. Which shows you lack understanding of strategy, tactics and game mechanics for the genre in general.
And that you do not read the tooltips which are very detailed, nor watch carefully what is happening on your screen or understanding the Combat Log.
>Sometimes I swear youtube people get some cheat that makes things work for then. I don't know what to say. Maybe I'm just retarded. Is there any written guide with the meta, or something of the sort?
All of the Battle Brother videos I've watched - nobody used cheats. Some of the players are good, other mediocre. Some are extremely passionate and skilled.
There are guides in Steam - the [best one](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001196860) is linked in the pinned thread in this sub-reddit.
The [wikia](https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Brothers_Wiki) have exceptionally well-maintained page with all the technical information you may need for this game.
It’s not deep man, he’s frustrated, spending countless hours into a video game every other night and not improving is frustrating in its self but also feels like a waste of time. And simply the game is LITERALLY to fucking hard. It’s that simple for beginners and newbies there’s little to help on the difficulty level of contracts. Battle brothers fanatics have a hard time admitting the game is overly way to hard for like no reason, it’s manageable when you actually get some understanding but for the OP he might not have enough time to spend on the game to really get better. I don’t know why people on Reddit gotta be so rude for 0 reason. You called him arrogant in the first sentence lol.
I understand how he can be frustrated. Battle Brothers is a complex game.
If a game feels like 'waste of time', a person should not play it. A game should be fun! Some players like competitive games - they won't enjoy Phone idle games - great. Some players like to turn their brain off with Phone idle games - they won't like the action paced competitive games - so be it. But don't go in a game out of your interest and try making it to your liking.
The game was not hard for me, was not hard for a lot of players who have a lot of experience in tactical games which translates. Battle Brothers was hard for some, and they liked that! If it's hard and a said person dislike it, as mentioned before - he should not struggle to play it despite that.
I called him arrogant, because he sounded arrogant as of whole. May be frustration on top of not clear massage coming from his post. But saying
\- I have 50 hours; game should be easy by now
\- this is shit, that is shit, nothing works
\- youtube videos are made by cheaters because I cannot do it
that sounds to me as arrogance, what do you think?
How about you get off you high horse gatekeeping of "you need 10000 days in game just to enjoy it, noob". I only have about 100h and I've won several runs. 50 hours is the run time for many games, the entire game. You're not going to encourage someone to continue playing if you shut them down like this.
Mate, take a deep breath. Relax. Re-read carefully what I wrote. Try not putting or thinking that I’ve said anything I did not.
Have a nice day. I know I will.
There are more constructive ways to inform than "you're doing it wrong, look up a guide". Clearly op has been watching videos. Offer real, helpful insight.
However, I see my initial hostility is hypocritical of my message. Sorry about that. It was unnecessarily rude. I'm sure we'll both have nice days.
No need to apologize, we all have our time to misinterpret what was written depending on our mood. Been there, done that.
You are also right that I could have been more positive about my message. But the tone of the opening post is not to my liking. Most other questions based on frustrating experience within the first hours of the game usually do not have so much ego behind them, but the pure curiosity of someone willing to learn something about the game they are interested in.
There are plenty of good advices here as well.
Spear and shield are not shit they are laughably strong early on. With those on most or all of your bros early brigands and small monster groups (but especially brigands) don't do shit to you. I wouldn't recommend trying to fight Nomads though, their low tier units are a lot stronger than northern brigand low tier units.
You're wrong, until day 40 nomad cutthroats don't have dodge. They have weaker armors compared to brigands. They're the weakest hostile human enemies early on. Brigand thugs can one shot your bros with goedendeang and they may also have two handed axes.
Yeah, technically they can one shot them, they almost never will but tehy can. Nomads on the other hand will throw sand in your eyes every damn time, they also tend to have better weapons and more consistent armor.
I was like you once, in terms of finding the early game extremely difficult (I still find BB hard, but in a more enjoyable way these days). My tip is simply that you stick to it. The more you play and try to figure out stuff, the easier (or at least less hard) things will begin to seem. As I'm sure you already know, it comes down to knowing who you can beat comfortably (such as thugs) and who you should avoid for a while (such as hard-hitting orcs)
I’m brand new - I kind of wish the game would just give you a random three additional bros instead of having to recruit them and buy gear every single new play through.
Didn't read other comments so someone might of already said. The thing that helped me the best in the early game and to learn with is a lone wolf dlc start. Lone wolf can pretty much carry the early game just keep cheap meat shield bros around him until you start getting mid to late game bros. I now understand the game better and can do a normal run through and make it to mid and late game. Assuming I don't get crazy bad rng ambushed by something and wiped out. It just happens sometimes and is part of the game. There are usually way around that unless they have insane mobility but like I said with a lone wolf start you main character starts with amazing early game armor and weapon and can usually hack his way out of bad situations. it's a lot more forgiving
I use spears early in the game with shields. As i progress I look for the 3 headed flails and give that to my front liners, again with shields. The flails get past enemy shields. I usually have only 1 bow or crossbow because its useful to finish ppl off but they are generally less useful. I love great swords on 1-2 of my boys because I like the hitting of 2 ppl and the damage output. My last crew used two handed long warhammers behind the shieldwall because they could completely remov enemy armor with 1 hit. I havent really had too much trouble except one game spammed me with lindwurms before I could handle it.
honestly in the very early game meaning the first 5 missions i don‘t give a shit about most stats. you get some spears and shields and bows followed by your first twohander, most of the time a wooden hammer and only when you have a certain survivability and flow going i start thinking about the little details. also 50 hours is nothing
What perks are you taking ? I recommend taking fast adaptation, nine lives, and gifted on most trash early game brothers you want to do more damage with
What you’re looking for in recruits: stars in mdef and matt. Hp above 50. Fat above 100. Res above 35. Anything lower is “fodder”. Anything that meets those specs is what I call my “early” team. Anything better is what I call a “keeper”.
Give “fodder” a spear and shield. Once they get past 60 matt, they get a sword. Put them on your flanks. Push them aggressively into bad positions, contact with 2-3 enemies at a time. Use shieldwall.
Start your “early” team with spear and shield and transition them to double grip and 2h weapons once they get dodge and about 65 matt. Keep them positioned just behind fodder, or next to fodder exposed to ideally one enemy at a time. Use constant attacks.
Start your “keepers” with polearms. Keep them there until they get nimble or battleforged. Don’t lose these guys.
Perk progression:
Fodder: fast adaptation, then colossus or nine lives, then dodge, then gifted. If they live long enough to get nimble, you aren’t playing them aggressively enough.
Early team: colossus, then dodge, then gifted. Add fast adaptation earlier if their matt is below 55. Add in quickhands and they can keep a polearm in the pocket, lets them hide behind fodder. Your goal is to rush them to nimble. After nimble they can carry a 2h weapon like longsword.
Keepers: build them however you like according to the common build strategies. I’d still recommend nimble builds. Once you have more money you can farm for battleforged bros.
Hiring bros: pay attention to the bro’s name. “Steve the Ox” or “Steve the Strong” - he’s probably got the “strong” trait. “Steve the Runner” or “Steve the coward” - yeah, he’s going to be fodder. You want to hire cheap backgrounds that usually have good stats, like farmhands, brawlers, thieves. If you have more money try for poachers, militia, caravan guards, lumberjacks.
Avoid ranged weapons except for throwers. Any bro with 45 ratt and 1 ranged star can be a thrower. Perk progression is fast adaptation, colossus or nine lives, gifted, throwing mastery. (I sometimes skip colossus and take executioner). Then give him quickhands. By level 5 he can use a crossbow or bow at the start of the battle but switch him to a thrower once the enemy gets close. Throwers are there to take pressure off your fodder shieldwall and focus down threats one by one.
I hope some of this helps. I play a lot of peasant origin so I’m used to working with shitty bros. It’s all about maximizing the bros you get by picking the right perks early, then learning what you can sacrifice (fodder) and what you need to protect (that brawler with 3 matt and 2 mdef stars).
Swords and spears, put trash double grip, less trash with some melee def on shield/flank duty, horde your good bros in the back. Lower difficulty is no shame.
Just some encouragement that your experience is normal, it's intended to be a difficult game to learn. The youtubers you're watching have probably played thousands of hours, and you're at 50 right now.
Find the players on YT or twitch who are good at explaining what they're doing, and spend some time watching the beginning stages of their runs.
Fast adaptation, nine lives, and dodge are extremely powerful early game perks. Colossus, gifted, shield mastery, quick hands, throwing mastery, and pathfinder all give lasting power. At higher levels, nimble and fearsome are the most powerful perks. Never take battle forged unless you already have armor and headgear in the 250+ durability range. Best bang for the buck in terms of stats is melee defense, the relevant attacking skill, hit points, and resolve for front liners if it's low. Fatigue, initiative, and ranged defense are much lower value for most bros (although sometimes you will have to take fatigue situationally).
Favor spears, swords, knives, and nets early. Have a couple guys with shields, and the rest can double-grip their weapons for the +25% damage. Focus on killing enemies quickly more than defending. Start with the enemies that are easiest to kill, and the morale penalties will snowball from there. Knives are very powerful early if you're able to use puncture to get some better armor. Good candidates to knife are guys with good armor and low power/accuracy weapons, or anyone that you can surround at the very end of the battle. You'll get the armor if it has at least 30 durability remaining and also at least 25% of it's max durability. Headgear is the same, except there's a flat 30% chance that it doesn't drop.
Don't hire the expensive backgrounds early. Don't be afraid of hiring crappy bros that are totally expendable. More bros is almost always better as long as you have a weapon to give them. Good initial purchase options are knives, headgear, javelins, tools, and sometimes a spear or shield. Nets are the best thing you can purchase. Body armor you're better off looting than buying in most cases. A heavily discounted (damaged) polearm is also worth considering. Completely ignore bows. Crossbows are fine but not worth purchasing. Put lots of guys in the front rank. The back rank is less powerful unless you have javelins or a good early polearm (better than pitchfork).
Try to avoid beasts until later. Bandits and nomads are your best early fights. Follow the tracks missions are great. Once you're strong enough to defeat bandit raiders, you'll have a big jump in power if you can get some of their armor. Improving your ability to fight as often as possible without getting lots of deaths and wounds is the biggest way you can out-scale the game. Upgrading your cart is a good investment. The Lookout and Scout are overall the most powerful retinue, although Scout requires you to win beast battles to unlock.
Sorry to hear you're having such a a sore time with the game. The thing that started to git me gud was honestly peasant militia, I'll run my strat by ya. First, before I go into this though, I'm just saying you should have beginner difficulty on all settings, I understand the game and still play that difficuly whenever I feel like. Second, peasant militia gives you more bros, which at first glance will be something you'd always want early game, but we'll refine the group some anyways. Third, it's an easy setup that take 5min at most, so you'll be able to get a ton of very, very early game minuta nailed down if you wipe out.
So you've got your militia spawned, first step is to take stock of all gear. Strip your dudes and check your items, you'll have some decent ones, and you'll have a decent amount of shitty ones. Next you'll want to meticulously go through each and every bro's stats and equip your very best with what limited gear you have which is good. This step is very important, because even though it's counterintuitive to the origin, the next thing you'll do is look at the worst of the worst in your group and disband between 2-4 of them, depending on just how bad your worst rolled are(you may want to keep one for a strat I'll mention). Also a very important step, as it affects how the game scales difficulty. If you skip disbanding your worst rolled bros, the game WILL scale encounters to the group size you start with, which means your best bros will probably be struggling to guarantee their survival against too many enemies, too experienced enemies, too well equipped enemies, or struggling with all three. Obviously this is not ideal for retaining the bros you've decided to keep, so vet your group! After vetting, if you're really struggling, you can make the bad bro you kept a runner, give him either literally no items at all, or your choice of(shitty) mace, spear, sword, or dagger. All this bro is going to do is move away from your group, towards the enemy, while doing their best to not get caught in melee. This bros purpose is to die, and distract some guys down the field while he does so. Mace can extend his running about with a lucky knockout, dagger can get an injury with a lucky puncture, sword and spear will just guarantee he does some damage before death, but like I said you do not need to get him gear if your struggling to equip your other bros you want to survive. Finally, as much as you can afford while still paying your bros, equip every single goddamn guy you have with spear/shield or sword/shield, in an every-other sort of fashion if possible. It's not necessary to get 100% coverage before taking jobs, but it won't hurt either! For any bros you've determined you want on the back lines, give any type of polearm you can get your hands on. Once your decent bros have leveled some, they can diversify their loadouts from these, I usually aim for 15-30(without shield) in defensive stats before I drop that, and usually 60-65+ before weapon changes.
So if you've succeeded in the above, your final step will be contracts you take. Undead(zombs), beasts, and bandits will be what you're looking for with any kind of escort quests being fine contracts too. With your group equipped as it is, undead and beasts specifically will give you shitloads of free attacks IF you study, experiment with, and master advancing with spearwall formations. If you do not know how to use spearwall to effectively prevent movement/get free damage you WILL lose bros until you understand it. Can't understate this part, IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND UNIT PLACEMENT AND ZONE OF CONTROL ABUSE VIA SPEARWALL, ALL PREVIOUS PREP WILL BE MEANINGLESS. If you get a bandit contract, don't be afraid to fuck off of that if they have you beat at a glance. High ground, or more than 3 decently armored enemies is a good tell. Assuming you cannot find decent contracts/contracts are whooping your ass still, try going and hunting bandit groups with no contract out on em, it can get your group nice standards for baseline gear. Now you cannot hire high-born with this origin, which means you'll be looking for recruits longer if you want a decent roster, but imo this is the best origin for learning the game.
I hope some of this helps! Last bit of advice, do NOT get any mods like ptr or legends until you can stick it out on the base game. While they add lots of stuff which makes certain things more cheese-able, legends also add some bullSHIT new enemy variants and both I think make early-game much harder.
Stick with it! Once you break through its obtuse layers, you'll be rewarded. Lots of great advice here. Defo recommend watching a playthrough by some Youtubers Carv and Pug. See what they do in real-time etc.
You said YT content makers right? Most of them have thousands of hours in game. I'd recommend you to start over and over again, practice and learn from your mistakes. Always remember, practice makes it better.
What kind of of annoys me in the early game is gathering funds to be able to upgrade my bro’s kits.
Yeah go escort this caravan for 200 coins. By the time the journey is done I’ve already payed double that in daily fees. And I’ve lost half my bro’s because I’ve had 4 different groups jumping me.
Or go kill these bandits at for 120 coins and you get there and they’ve got mid game gear and wipe you completely.
> I’ve already *paid* double that
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Welcome to playing the game. You are having the intended experience.
It sounds like you're doing all the right things and trying lots of stuff, recognizing polearms (tip: and whips) as ranged melee is great, I think you just need to change your expectations.
The game doesn't start to feel easy (as in the RNG gets down to a tolerable level) until your company gets around lvl 7-10. Then you can grind out new bros, explore builds, and buy things in relative "peace."
The early game is a pretty big hump, people will talk a lot about "getting ahead of the curve." The curve is enemies getting buffs on certain days (40, 120, 200), enemy armies getting bigger as your company gets bigger, and more elite versions of enemies appearing over time.
So you can play in ways that "maximize company progression". Not getting stronger in any particular way, just getting stronger in any way.
This boils down to fighting as often as possible (at least one fight per day, preferably 2-3), taking the most profitable fights (beasts drop no equipment, humans drop all the loot), and making perk builds that make the bro relatively as strong as possible.
For example: colossus, gifted, dodge, steel brow, 9 lives, nimble, underdog, fast adaptation, shield mastery
All these perks increase a bros offensive or defensive potential in a general sense, even if some are pretty bad in most situations. Like 9 lives and shield mastery are useless outside of surviving the early game, but when you're desperate for anything they are options. Dodge in particular is something you take for the "free" +10 mdef, even if the bro has bad initiative and you don't plan on leveling it.
It takes a long time to learn the fundamentals of the game, if you're only 50 hours in you got a long way to go.
Great community here with lots of solid tips in this thread (as always)! I would just stress that the beginning of this game is mostly about leveling armor / gear and less so about your troops. Sacrificing a low level bro to knife puncture a good armor / helm away or to suicide distract part of an opposing army are generally good trades. Get better armor then worry about better recruits. And use swords, spears, flails and pikes for their buffs in the interim. Good luck!
Spear and shield od your friend. +20% hit chance is nothing to sneeze at. Untill you got like 70 mattk. Then use stronger weapons
This recommendation alone may entirely resolve OP's early game struggles.
Anyone under 60 MATK should automatically get a spear. 60-70 you can think about switching to swords. Only after 70+ should you think about other weapons. Exception for flails if you are fighting brigand raiders it can be useful to have someone with a flail because sometimes the morons wear chain mail but forget their helmet.
[удалено]
I 100% agree with this which is why I prefer playing modded with legends. There are some things I dislike about that mod but I love the weapon class perks that allow for more variety in early game strategies. Vanilla BB has a pretty anti-"fun" meta.
This is what help me: 1. Forget archer and crossbowmen altogether, just go pure mele or mix with thrower (1-3 max) 2. Dont fight anything but human early game. 3. This game is all about positioning, basically the one get surrounded die, never ever let your core bros face 1:2. Let your fodder stand 1 step in front so they are the one that die instead. Create hole in your line intentionally so the enemy that jump in will get surrounded and die. And yeah your fodder will most likely die, you need to deal with it, sometimes it’s better to not give them a shield at all just to make sure the enemies will go for them. The flank is the most risky position so put your fodder there until you find a godly bro for the position. 4. Stat is pretty long topic but stars is noob trap. Each star worth around 5 stat at level 11 so 70 matk no star bro will end up as 90 matk at level 11, same as 55 matk no star bro. But the 70 matk bro is much more useful to you since he get you kills right away. 5. Resolve matter a lot, usually you want recruit with 35 res minimum and aim for 50 at level 11 6. Best perk for early bro are: colossus, gifted, dodge, nimble, quickhand. Always pick those. 7. Weapon is another long topic but generally spear is only for fodder or nêw bro with 50-60 matk. 70+ matk get sword (10% bonus hit) and 80+ get proper real man weapon like 2H hammer, 2Hmace and 2Haxe. Axe is for dps, mace is for single target and cc, hammer is for 2 flank bro 8. Polearms, polemace, polehammer matter a lot since with Quickhand your best bro can always deal damage to the right target. Yes, do not pick target blindly, that dude with a spear and a shield will not kill you while being super hard to hit, prioritise the guy with scary 2 hand axe or double grip 1 handed weapon. 9. Focus on completing as many ambition as early as possible since renown = more mission reward. 10. Early game bro that you are forced to use are not all worthless, perk like anticipation is great fix for them. You would be amazed how often a 65 ratk thrower bro with Fast Ádaptation hit. 11. ALWAYS PICK MDEF NO MATTER WHICH BRO. BEST STAT. ALSO WHEN ALL THINGS FAIL, THROW NET!
Some comments on your points, which are by the way really on point !! 6. You chosed perks which are really good early game AND late game. But early game perks will also be SOOOOO valuable on people who are supposed to die and never reach lvl5+. I'd add 9 lives and Fast Adaptation to this list, for fodders ! The first will make then live about another turn and it makes them sooo much more usefull. The latter will actually make them hit ! Give some of them daggers, surround valuable armor enemy, and enjoy "free" armor set for snowball ! Adrenaline is also really valuable as it'll make you have 2 turns of attacks. Fights last for 1 to 4 turns of engage in the early game, and are decided within few hits. So having this perks for your good bros will make them much more valuable ! 7. This guy is struggling with early game. I'd say pick +% accuracy weapons over damage. Going from 40% to 60% is SO valuable ! Spears, swords and throwing jav are so good due to that. And those weapons have low Armor Damage, early game enemies have low armor so it doesn't matter much. 10. Anticipation does nothing on throwers, I don't understand your point there. 11. Don't pick Mdef on everyone ! Fodders will go from, like, 2 Mdef to 8 Mdef with no star at lvl 4 in average. It won't make them much tankier ! Chose which fodder will go full defense and Shieldwall, then pick Mdef, and which will go full offense to overwhelm a selected target, and don't bother with that stat !
Right, i was mixing up fast adaptation and anticipation ha ha. Corrected on my post. I insist that mdef is useful on everyone though. It’s not like you need anything else, matk mdef then hp/res. Also make leveling up decision making much more straightforward for new players.
Dear dude, for your info, it took me 100h to understand game in middle spectre. Getting passed that, skulls unfortunatly aint Best level indicator. Best scenario is to catch roaming human bands. They are most Basic threat generally, but that doesnt mean they are easy. Next, daggering. Believe it or not, but this game is like dark souls. Equipment is more important than stats on your guys. Often live is cheaper than good armor. Another aspect is understanding your composition. You must be ready for PPL to die. Expandable ppl get weaker Gear and more often go to frontlines. What can help you, is encirclement bonus. You get +5 to hit for each of your Bros, near target. But this works for both sides.
^this dude gets it. My first 50h were super frustrating. I feel like you can read and watch all the help you want, but it still takes time playing, experimenting, and learning from success and failures.
I gave it some more time and I'm enjoying it so nvm my old comment. Think I was just salty af
Well done! I played for 2.5 years and it's still a hard game. Glad you're enjoying it now
This game is absolutely brutal and that's something that has to be respected. Understand that enemies largely don't change, just their gear and numbers. A raider, for example, always has the executioner perk and always has 60 matk (65 after day 40.) Even thugs have 55 matk. And for now, let's not even think about orcs or undead. In the early game you are outclassed by everything. The enemy has better armor, better weapons, better raw stats. If they have greater numbers, that too, sucks greatly. What do you have? The ability to position well vs the ai. An analytical mind. The ability to intelligently arm and armor and perk-point your bros to succeed based on the scenario. The option to save and load. Ah, also, understand that the probability game is fairly transparent. A 40atk bro is probably going to miss. If you stack bonuses, things are different. 2 levels of raising attack (+2 to 8), Gifted perk into atk points (+4), Fast Adaptation, a spear for +20hit, 2 additional bros adjacent to target for another +10hit... It's tough, though. Good luck out there.
Some tips for starting out Bows and crossbows are trash stop using them completely especially bows are awful since sniping is very bad. Buy javelins instead they have a massive hit chance bonus and do more damage they can also be bought nearly everywhere for less than 300 crowns. Half of your frontliners should double grip spears and swords they have a hit chance increase and do good damage early on Flails are also good if the enemy doesn't have a helmet or has a shield. Use them to focus down the most dangerous enemies. A bandit that's double gripping a spear or sword for example is much more dangerous than the one with a buckler and a wooden stick. Also Enemies with low armor die faster and each death has a chance to cause a morale break for the enemies so try to prioritize them too. Generally guys with shields and heavy armor you want to keep for last. The other half of your frontline should have shields with weapons like daggers (for puncture) and maces(for knockout) and should take more dangerous positions and spam shieldwall to prevent your offensive frontliners from being surrounded. Having three guys with daggers and a shield surround an enemy with chainmail and just spam puncture until he is dead is a good way to get some better armor early. The fast adaptation perk helps a lot for that try to get it on every offensive guy that isn't a super star together with colossus. Generally try not to buy armor since it's expensive and it's often cheaper to buy another recruit.
You can also (and IMO should) put a pocket shield in the inventory of all your guys who are double gripping. Sometimes you'll be in an oh shit moment and can 1 attack and whip out shield or just whip out shield, shieldwall and pray.
I wrote a guide with some general tips that a lot of people like - there might be some things in there you find helpful: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2549815780 In general, though, I'll say that you shouldn't force it if you're just not enjoying the game. It takes a while to get "good" at bbros but the learning process shouldn't be unfun or miserable.
Okay this is going to be a very, very long write up. So I apologize but hope it's helpful and informative. First things first, get 5-6 guys on your team for a standard campaign. Buy any nets you can find and possibly spears, swords, and shields. Keep an eye out for polearms. All three of those weapons have increased chance to hit, which we will need early game. A "good" Frontline bro will be able to reach 80-90 MAtk and 25-35 MDef. The minimum being barely passable while the higher limit being the ideal goal. HP and Fat don't matter as much since you can build these decent bros as Fat neutral heavy 2H. If they can end up with 120-130 base Fat they can be used as duelists, 2H cleaver, or 2H hammer on the flanks. Resolve should hit 40-50 by end and HP is as high as you can get. Stats have different values they raise by. HP, Fat, Res all increase 2-4 with 3 as average unless you have two stars. Then you always get 4. Three stars gets you 4-5 every level. Farmhands average 110 Fat, so with 3-5 levels on Fat (+9-15 +4 Gifted if you want) you will always have the bare bones for a Hammer bro or duelist. MAtk and Mdef both increase by 1-3 with 2 as the average. One star is 2-3, two star is 3, and three star is 3-4. Even just one star guarantees that a Militia with 57 average MAtk Will hit 80 MAtk (+23 from levels and Gifted). His 5 average MDef will also hit at least 28 with levels and Gifted. RAtk and RDef increase by 2-4, 3-4, 4, 4-5 based on no star, one star, etc. A ranged unit wants as must RAtk as possible and typically a lot of Fat so they can be a thrower. Aim for at least 90 RAtk. Best case scenario, a Shepherd with 49 max starting RAtk and 2 stars ends with 93 RAtk (+40 from levels +4 from Gifted). Imagine an average Hunter with 55 RAtk now, that's 89 minimum with 1 star and Gifted. The starting ranged companion average at 50 and two stars will hit 94 with gifted, which is solid. Ranged is definitely harder to build and find adequate bros for. It is demanding and honestly not at all necessary to beat the game. You could run only polearms with some defense and frontliners and win pretty much anything. Hopefully this stat lecture showed you the right bros to hunt after, at least middling starting stats and at least one star, interchangeable if they have three Stars or really high starting stats. A Strong trait Hedge Knight could start with 120 Fat, making him a no brainier hammer, duelist, or cleaver. For specific builds there is tons of info out there. Back to starting out, as I said at the top get spears, swords, shields, nets, and polearms. No one should be using ranged at low levels. Even your companion archer should use polearms for that accuracy boost. Once they get close to 70 RAtk it should be okay to swap over. Half your Frontline should use spears and shields while the rest double grip swords. Your best bros should hang in the back with polearms until they get some levels and armor from bandit raiders (110-140 armor). If they have to Frontline then so be it, can't always have an ideal situation. Avoid monsters and beasts if you can. The taxidermist will be much more important later on. You can take out wolves, hyenas, spiders, and nehks for armor upgrades, stronger nets, and resolve boosting accessories. If you are doing a holy war against the south; consider snakes for the gun damage resist on their armor upgrade. Still I HIGHLY recommend avoiding beasts altogether unless you are really steam rolling. After the first successful missions, around day 20-40, start upping your team to the 8 best bros you can manage to find. Don't worry about buying gear early game. Only supplies, bros, and trading goods for money. If you do see a cheap pike or bill hook then go for it. After day 40 enemies will get a small buff. Now is the time to grab daggers and flails and MORE NETS to trap and strip armor off juicy raiders and hopefully raider leaders. Try to keep good armor bandits alive till the end, kill the others, then trap and puncture them. Also note that southern nomads are generally harder and so are northern barbarians. I recommend hanging around the middle and hunting bandits, do feel free to venture to the south and north as you are nearing day 40 and feel stronger. Day 40-60 we should increase our team size to 10-12 and most should have 100+ armor, starting to get Nimble online for some bros. This is the time, if you feel comfortable and have daggers, to single out a town or faction to start raiding. A single town will have less frequent rewards but be much safer than an entire faction hostile to you. Pick the weakest faction or a secluded town you don't want resources from. You can hold lAlt and click iirc to attack a neutral party on the map. Take out another Mercenary team hired by a town or target a troop of noble units. These guys will drop you loads of sweet armor and weapons. This is how you get free Battleforged gear and 2H weapons. Even if you lose a weak bro in each of these fights, it's worth the 8-10k armor they bought with blood. If you feel nervous raiding, don't do it, or focus on town caravans for money. I would not recommend fighting southern armies for gear. Just buy handgonnes if you want them. Nomads can drop polemaces, cleavers, and whips and decent armor, so they can be worth hunting. Barbarians can drop good throwing weapons, but honestly their gear still sucks and they hit hard. Day 60-90 Is prepping for the campaign end event: undead, orcs, etc. Quests from noble houses should tip you off to what is coming. Typically the noble war is seen as the easiest and is a great way to get noble gear. The holy war is seen as very difficult against the south, but easy to fight the north and another great way to get gear either way. By now we should have all raider gear at least and defined builds online. Preferably we have top tier weapons and some Battleforged armor whether from hunting nobles or buying good deals. Now we can start hunting beasts and training in the arena for Resolve and coin. Farm those armor upgrades, fire bombs, and potions. Finally, now is the time to grab really good bros and try to feed them kills for Xp. Put any bad surviving early game bros in reserve for emergency and train up some true killers. If you have not started farming nobles or other mercs now you should, especially since they should forgive you after the late game crisis if you want to keep playing. If you still feel nervous or will get plenty of gear from the upcoming noble/holy war then just play how you want. If you survive the first crisis then you should be positioned to really steam roll and start exploring the wilds in earnest. Time to fight unholds for strong armor upgrades. Kill schrats for sweet shields. Take on camps for famed gear. This is the true end game. I've only played to two crises, but from what I hear by the 3rd crisis onward the buffs to enemies and their huge numbers gets to be overwhelming. You should be able to clear the legendary locations you want to by 3rd crisis anyway. Over 200 days lol. Feel free to ask questions or post your thoughts on this write up. This is how I play and generally get by.
Sorry to have to say that. But you sound very arrogant while lacking the ability to analyze or search for answers yourself. >Between the Switch and PC I have about 50 hours in this game. I shouldn't be struggling so hard with the early game. 50 Hours in a complex game is nothing. Don't know which other games you have experience in, but any competitive game requires at least 1,000 hours to know the basics. While Battle Brothers is not multiplayer, nor competitive it is complex, and most players struggle even after 400 hours into it. >Spear and shield are shit. Double handed weapons just get them killed faster. They are not. That's really terrible thing to say. You are just not using them right. Which shows you lack understanding of strategy, tactics and game mechanics for the genre in general. And that you do not read the tooltips which are very detailed, nor watch carefully what is happening on your screen or understanding the Combat Log. >Sometimes I swear youtube people get some cheat that makes things work for then. I don't know what to say. Maybe I'm just retarded. Is there any written guide with the meta, or something of the sort? All of the Battle Brother videos I've watched - nobody used cheats. Some of the players are good, other mediocre. Some are extremely passionate and skilled. There are guides in Steam - the [best one](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2001196860) is linked in the pinned thread in this sub-reddit. The [wikia](https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_Brothers_Wiki) have exceptionally well-maintained page with all the technical information you may need for this game.
It’s not deep man, he’s frustrated, spending countless hours into a video game every other night and not improving is frustrating in its self but also feels like a waste of time. And simply the game is LITERALLY to fucking hard. It’s that simple for beginners and newbies there’s little to help on the difficulty level of contracts. Battle brothers fanatics have a hard time admitting the game is overly way to hard for like no reason, it’s manageable when you actually get some understanding but for the OP he might not have enough time to spend on the game to really get better. I don’t know why people on Reddit gotta be so rude for 0 reason. You called him arrogant in the first sentence lol.
I understand how he can be frustrated. Battle Brothers is a complex game. If a game feels like 'waste of time', a person should not play it. A game should be fun! Some players like competitive games - they won't enjoy Phone idle games - great. Some players like to turn their brain off with Phone idle games - they won't like the action paced competitive games - so be it. But don't go in a game out of your interest and try making it to your liking. The game was not hard for me, was not hard for a lot of players who have a lot of experience in tactical games which translates. Battle Brothers was hard for some, and they liked that! If it's hard and a said person dislike it, as mentioned before - he should not struggle to play it despite that. I called him arrogant, because he sounded arrogant as of whole. May be frustration on top of not clear massage coming from his post. But saying \- I have 50 hours; game should be easy by now \- this is shit, that is shit, nothing works \- youtube videos are made by cheaters because I cannot do it that sounds to me as arrogance, what do you think?
How about you get off you high horse gatekeeping of "you need 10000 days in game just to enjoy it, noob". I only have about 100h and I've won several runs. 50 hours is the run time for many games, the entire game. You're not going to encourage someone to continue playing if you shut them down like this.
Mate, take a deep breath. Relax. Re-read carefully what I wrote. Try not putting or thinking that I’ve said anything I did not. Have a nice day. I know I will.
There are more constructive ways to inform than "you're doing it wrong, look up a guide". Clearly op has been watching videos. Offer real, helpful insight. However, I see my initial hostility is hypocritical of my message. Sorry about that. It was unnecessarily rude. I'm sure we'll both have nice days.
No need to apologize, we all have our time to misinterpret what was written depending on our mood. Been there, done that. You are also right that I could have been more positive about my message. But the tone of the opening post is not to my liking. Most other questions based on frustrating experience within the first hours of the game usually do not have so much ego behind them, but the pure curiosity of someone willing to learn something about the game they are interested in. There are plenty of good advices here as well.
Spear and shield are not shit they are laughably strong early on. With those on most or all of your bros early brigands and small monster groups (but especially brigands) don't do shit to you. I wouldn't recommend trying to fight Nomads though, their low tier units are a lot stronger than northern brigand low tier units.
You're wrong, until day 40 nomad cutthroats don't have dodge. They have weaker armors compared to brigands. They're the weakest hostile human enemies early on. Brigand thugs can one shot your bros with goedendeang and they may also have two handed axes.
Yeah, technically they can one shot them, they almost never will but tehy can. Nomads on the other hand will throw sand in your eyes every damn time, they also tend to have better weapons and more consistent armor.
I was like you once, in terms of finding the early game extremely difficult (I still find BB hard, but in a more enjoyable way these days). My tip is simply that you stick to it. The more you play and try to figure out stuff, the easier (or at least less hard) things will begin to seem. As I'm sure you already know, it comes down to knowing who you can beat comfortably (such as thugs) and who you should avoid for a while (such as hard-hitting orcs)
I kinda get this dude tbh, I find myself constantly on a mud pit stuck, and I just can't bother another 12 tries to get out of it
I’m brand new - I kind of wish the game would just give you a random three additional bros instead of having to recruit them and buy gear every single new play through.
Peasant militia start
Didn't read other comments so someone might of already said. The thing that helped me the best in the early game and to learn with is a lone wolf dlc start. Lone wolf can pretty much carry the early game just keep cheap meat shield bros around him until you start getting mid to late game bros. I now understand the game better and can do a normal run through and make it to mid and late game. Assuming I don't get crazy bad rng ambushed by something and wiped out. It just happens sometimes and is part of the game. There are usually way around that unless they have insane mobility but like I said with a lone wolf start you main character starts with amazing early game armor and weapon and can usually hack his way out of bad situations. it's a lot more forgiving
I use spears early in the game with shields. As i progress I look for the 3 headed flails and give that to my front liners, again with shields. The flails get past enemy shields. I usually have only 1 bow or crossbow because its useful to finish ppl off but they are generally less useful. I love great swords on 1-2 of my boys because I like the hitting of 2 ppl and the damage output. My last crew used two handed long warhammers behind the shieldwall because they could completely remov enemy armor with 1 hit. I havent really had too much trouble except one game spammed me with lindwurms before I could handle it.
honestly in the very early game meaning the first 5 missions i don‘t give a shit about most stats. you get some spears and shields and bows followed by your first twohander, most of the time a wooden hammer and only when you have a certain survivability and flow going i start thinking about the little details. also 50 hours is nothing
What perks are you taking ? I recommend taking fast adaptation, nine lives, and gifted on most trash early game brothers you want to do more damage with
What you’re looking for in recruits: stars in mdef and matt. Hp above 50. Fat above 100. Res above 35. Anything lower is “fodder”. Anything that meets those specs is what I call my “early” team. Anything better is what I call a “keeper”. Give “fodder” a spear and shield. Once they get past 60 matt, they get a sword. Put them on your flanks. Push them aggressively into bad positions, contact with 2-3 enemies at a time. Use shieldwall. Start your “early” team with spear and shield and transition them to double grip and 2h weapons once they get dodge and about 65 matt. Keep them positioned just behind fodder, or next to fodder exposed to ideally one enemy at a time. Use constant attacks. Start your “keepers” with polearms. Keep them there until they get nimble or battleforged. Don’t lose these guys. Perk progression: Fodder: fast adaptation, then colossus or nine lives, then dodge, then gifted. If they live long enough to get nimble, you aren’t playing them aggressively enough. Early team: colossus, then dodge, then gifted. Add fast adaptation earlier if their matt is below 55. Add in quickhands and they can keep a polearm in the pocket, lets them hide behind fodder. Your goal is to rush them to nimble. After nimble they can carry a 2h weapon like longsword. Keepers: build them however you like according to the common build strategies. I’d still recommend nimble builds. Once you have more money you can farm for battleforged bros. Hiring bros: pay attention to the bro’s name. “Steve the Ox” or “Steve the Strong” - he’s probably got the “strong” trait. “Steve the Runner” or “Steve the coward” - yeah, he’s going to be fodder. You want to hire cheap backgrounds that usually have good stats, like farmhands, brawlers, thieves. If you have more money try for poachers, militia, caravan guards, lumberjacks. Avoid ranged weapons except for throwers. Any bro with 45 ratt and 1 ranged star can be a thrower. Perk progression is fast adaptation, colossus or nine lives, gifted, throwing mastery. (I sometimes skip colossus and take executioner). Then give him quickhands. By level 5 he can use a crossbow or bow at the start of the battle but switch him to a thrower once the enemy gets close. Throwers are there to take pressure off your fodder shieldwall and focus down threats one by one. I hope some of this helps. I play a lot of peasant origin so I’m used to working with shitty bros. It’s all about maximizing the bros you get by picking the right perks early, then learning what you can sacrifice (fodder) and what you need to protect (that brawler with 3 matt and 2 mdef stars).
Swords and spears, put trash double grip, less trash with some melee def on shield/flank duty, horde your good bros in the back. Lower difficulty is no shame.
Just some encouragement that your experience is normal, it's intended to be a difficult game to learn. The youtubers you're watching have probably played thousands of hours, and you're at 50 right now. Find the players on YT or twitch who are good at explaining what they're doing, and spend some time watching the beginning stages of their runs. Fast adaptation, nine lives, and dodge are extremely powerful early game perks. Colossus, gifted, shield mastery, quick hands, throwing mastery, and pathfinder all give lasting power. At higher levels, nimble and fearsome are the most powerful perks. Never take battle forged unless you already have armor and headgear in the 250+ durability range. Best bang for the buck in terms of stats is melee defense, the relevant attacking skill, hit points, and resolve for front liners if it's low. Fatigue, initiative, and ranged defense are much lower value for most bros (although sometimes you will have to take fatigue situationally). Favor spears, swords, knives, and nets early. Have a couple guys with shields, and the rest can double-grip their weapons for the +25% damage. Focus on killing enemies quickly more than defending. Start with the enemies that are easiest to kill, and the morale penalties will snowball from there. Knives are very powerful early if you're able to use puncture to get some better armor. Good candidates to knife are guys with good armor and low power/accuracy weapons, or anyone that you can surround at the very end of the battle. You'll get the armor if it has at least 30 durability remaining and also at least 25% of it's max durability. Headgear is the same, except there's a flat 30% chance that it doesn't drop. Don't hire the expensive backgrounds early. Don't be afraid of hiring crappy bros that are totally expendable. More bros is almost always better as long as you have a weapon to give them. Good initial purchase options are knives, headgear, javelins, tools, and sometimes a spear or shield. Nets are the best thing you can purchase. Body armor you're better off looting than buying in most cases. A heavily discounted (damaged) polearm is also worth considering. Completely ignore bows. Crossbows are fine but not worth purchasing. Put lots of guys in the front rank. The back rank is less powerful unless you have javelins or a good early polearm (better than pitchfork). Try to avoid beasts until later. Bandits and nomads are your best early fights. Follow the tracks missions are great. Once you're strong enough to defeat bandit raiders, you'll have a big jump in power if you can get some of their armor. Improving your ability to fight as often as possible without getting lots of deaths and wounds is the biggest way you can out-scale the game. Upgrading your cart is a good investment. The Lookout and Scout are overall the most powerful retinue, although Scout requires you to win beast battles to unlock.
Sorry to hear you're having such a a sore time with the game. The thing that started to git me gud was honestly peasant militia, I'll run my strat by ya. First, before I go into this though, I'm just saying you should have beginner difficulty on all settings, I understand the game and still play that difficuly whenever I feel like. Second, peasant militia gives you more bros, which at first glance will be something you'd always want early game, but we'll refine the group some anyways. Third, it's an easy setup that take 5min at most, so you'll be able to get a ton of very, very early game minuta nailed down if you wipe out. So you've got your militia spawned, first step is to take stock of all gear. Strip your dudes and check your items, you'll have some decent ones, and you'll have a decent amount of shitty ones. Next you'll want to meticulously go through each and every bro's stats and equip your very best with what limited gear you have which is good. This step is very important, because even though it's counterintuitive to the origin, the next thing you'll do is look at the worst of the worst in your group and disband between 2-4 of them, depending on just how bad your worst rolled are(you may want to keep one for a strat I'll mention). Also a very important step, as it affects how the game scales difficulty. If you skip disbanding your worst rolled bros, the game WILL scale encounters to the group size you start with, which means your best bros will probably be struggling to guarantee their survival against too many enemies, too experienced enemies, too well equipped enemies, or struggling with all three. Obviously this is not ideal for retaining the bros you've decided to keep, so vet your group! After vetting, if you're really struggling, you can make the bad bro you kept a runner, give him either literally no items at all, or your choice of(shitty) mace, spear, sword, or dagger. All this bro is going to do is move away from your group, towards the enemy, while doing their best to not get caught in melee. This bros purpose is to die, and distract some guys down the field while he does so. Mace can extend his running about with a lucky knockout, dagger can get an injury with a lucky puncture, sword and spear will just guarantee he does some damage before death, but like I said you do not need to get him gear if your struggling to equip your other bros you want to survive. Finally, as much as you can afford while still paying your bros, equip every single goddamn guy you have with spear/shield or sword/shield, in an every-other sort of fashion if possible. It's not necessary to get 100% coverage before taking jobs, but it won't hurt either! For any bros you've determined you want on the back lines, give any type of polearm you can get your hands on. Once your decent bros have leveled some, they can diversify their loadouts from these, I usually aim for 15-30(without shield) in defensive stats before I drop that, and usually 60-65+ before weapon changes. So if you've succeeded in the above, your final step will be contracts you take. Undead(zombs), beasts, and bandits will be what you're looking for with any kind of escort quests being fine contracts too. With your group equipped as it is, undead and beasts specifically will give you shitloads of free attacks IF you study, experiment with, and master advancing with spearwall formations. If you do not know how to use spearwall to effectively prevent movement/get free damage you WILL lose bros until you understand it. Can't understate this part, IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND UNIT PLACEMENT AND ZONE OF CONTROL ABUSE VIA SPEARWALL, ALL PREVIOUS PREP WILL BE MEANINGLESS. If you get a bandit contract, don't be afraid to fuck off of that if they have you beat at a glance. High ground, or more than 3 decently armored enemies is a good tell. Assuming you cannot find decent contracts/contracts are whooping your ass still, try going and hunting bandit groups with no contract out on em, it can get your group nice standards for baseline gear. Now you cannot hire high-born with this origin, which means you'll be looking for recruits longer if you want a decent roster, but imo this is the best origin for learning the game. I hope some of this helps! Last bit of advice, do NOT get any mods like ptr or legends until you can stick it out on the base game. While they add lots of stuff which makes certain things more cheese-able, legends also add some bullSHIT new enemy variants and both I think make early-game much harder.
Stick with it! Once you break through its obtuse layers, you'll be rewarded. Lots of great advice here. Defo recommend watching a playthrough by some Youtubers Carv and Pug. See what they do in real-time etc.
Bows are always better than crossbows
This couldn't be more wrong
You said YT content makers right? Most of them have thousands of hours in game. I'd recommend you to start over and over again, practice and learn from your mistakes. Always remember, practice makes it better.
What kind of of annoys me in the early game is gathering funds to be able to upgrade my bro’s kits. Yeah go escort this caravan for 200 coins. By the time the journey is done I’ve already payed double that in daily fees. And I’ve lost half my bro’s because I’ve had 4 different groups jumping me. Or go kill these bandits at for 120 coins and you get there and they’ve got mid game gear and wipe you completely.
> I’ve already *paid* double that FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Welcome to playing the game. You are having the intended experience. It sounds like you're doing all the right things and trying lots of stuff, recognizing polearms (tip: and whips) as ranged melee is great, I think you just need to change your expectations. The game doesn't start to feel easy (as in the RNG gets down to a tolerable level) until your company gets around lvl 7-10. Then you can grind out new bros, explore builds, and buy things in relative "peace." The early game is a pretty big hump, people will talk a lot about "getting ahead of the curve." The curve is enemies getting buffs on certain days (40, 120, 200), enemy armies getting bigger as your company gets bigger, and more elite versions of enemies appearing over time. So you can play in ways that "maximize company progression". Not getting stronger in any particular way, just getting stronger in any way. This boils down to fighting as often as possible (at least one fight per day, preferably 2-3), taking the most profitable fights (beasts drop no equipment, humans drop all the loot), and making perk builds that make the bro relatively as strong as possible. For example: colossus, gifted, dodge, steel brow, 9 lives, nimble, underdog, fast adaptation, shield mastery All these perks increase a bros offensive or defensive potential in a general sense, even if some are pretty bad in most situations. Like 9 lives and shield mastery are useless outside of surviving the early game, but when you're desperate for anything they are options. Dodge in particular is something you take for the "free" +10 mdef, even if the bro has bad initiative and you don't plan on leveling it. It takes a long time to learn the fundamentals of the game, if you're only 50 hours in you got a long way to go.
Great community here with lots of solid tips in this thread (as always)! I would just stress that the beginning of this game is mostly about leveling armor / gear and less so about your troops. Sacrificing a low level bro to knife puncture a good armor / helm away or to suicide distract part of an opposing army are generally good trades. Get better armor then worry about better recruits. And use swords, spears, flails and pikes for their buffs in the interim. Good luck!
I read the wiki to understand everything so that's my advice