Incline Battle Brothers + Beasts & Exploration, Warriors of the North and Blazing Deserts DLC Thread

[Stavrophore]

Okay now the game's just fucking with me.

Another early-ish game. Things just getting started, got to around level 3 - 4 for my vets, although with some heavy losses on the way. I get a two-skull bandit camp job. There's a boss. I kill him. On my way back, I get mugged by bounty hunters.

That's just not fair man.

You could have simply given them the head...
C&C

Is it me, or do enemy's stats scale with your lvl?
I finally grinded enough, so that certain amounts of certain enemies "should" be no-brainers only for them to really hurt me anyway...
That and some other aspects keep this game from being one of my favourites in recent years. (Still fun and I just wasted a week of vacation on it...)
Now hoping for mods to "fix" scaling (and brigand marksmen and orc charges), increase world sizes and to let me play as orc warbands or to rule the world with necromancy.

Yep. The dev spill some beans recently and explain that enemy bands scale with time(global) and company strength(so probably levels, average levels and backgrounds, dunno what about items).
Game can not be modded. Other than graphic and audio replacement(but its all meh).
All important text game files all locked into .cnut files that you can not do anything. So no modding, tweaking or balancing.
Its not Mount and blade where you can open Notepad++ and change stuff.
Sadly.

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

 

[golgo21]

I am playing on beginner and I can't defeat multiple orc warriors or ancient legionaries

orc warriors are mid/late game enemies,you need a solid line of shield bros with armors and helms over 200 each and at least 1 2handed hammer bro to strip them from their armor.

 

[Andnjord]

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

They only scale in that the encounters get harder compositions, ie: more dudes and more more dangerous combos. Bad guys stats and equipment stay the same. By day 80 something you should be able to trounce any number of raiders, won't matter if there's 15 or 30 of them. No thugs in coat of scale in here.

EDIT: Computer illiterate here, but what makes a dev release his game in plain text or locked (.cnut)?

 

[Ezeekiel]

Okay now the game's just fucking with me.

Another early-ish game. Things just getting started, got to around level 3 - 4 for my vets, although with some heavy losses on the way. I get a two-skull bandit camp job. There's a boss. I kill him. On my way back, I get mugged by bounty hunters.

That's just not fair man.

You could have simply given them the head...
C&C

Is it me, or do enemy's stats scale with your lvl?
I finally grinded enough, so that certain amounts of certain enemies "should" be no-brainers only for them to really hurt me anyway...
That and some other aspects keep this game from being one of my favourites in recent years. (Still fun and I just wasted a week of vacation on it...)
Now hoping for mods to "fix" scaling (and brigand marksmen and orc charges), increase world sizes and to let me play as orc warbands or to rule the world with necromancy.

Against ork charges you can use that one high level perk which makes you immune to stun and gives 50% dmg resist for 2 turns. Spearmen with high melee and maybe even spear mastery can also work really well, but they sort of just drag out the battle against warriors and wreck their own spears... And if warriors get through you better have another weapon on hand.

Not sure marksmen need fixing per se. Would be nice not to encounter masses of them until midgame though.

Enemy stats do feel like they improve, but I'm not sure. Never forget RNG.

 

[Ezeekiel]

I am playing on beginner and I can't defeat multiple orc warriors or ancient legionaries

orc warriors are mid/late game enemies,you need a solid line of shield bros with armors and helms over 200 each and at least 1 2handed hammer bro to strip them from their armor.

Shields aren't really necessary imo. Heavy armor 2handers (axes, hammers, gs less so) plus billhooks with proper melee skill will take them out faster than one-handers... Which means less attacks on your guy so it's a wash in terms of damage received and you save time...

 

[golgo21]

against enemy archers you need dodge,anticipation,nimble and light armor for your archers.my 120 initiative/90 fatigue archers always win the initial archer duels.

Shields aren't really necessary imo. Heavy armor 2handers (axes, hammers, gs less so) plus billhooks with proper melee skill will take them out faster than one-handers... Which means less attacks on your guy so it's a wash in terms of damage received and you save time.

i use 4 shields bros to tie them up and 2handed swords/hammers to flank them and kill them,its difficult to spec 7-8 bros with 2handers and heavy stuff and also to have the right stats.

 

[Stavrophore]

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

They only scale in that the encounters get harder compositions, ie: more dudes and more more dangerous combos. Bad guys stats and equipment stay the same. By day 80 something you should be able to trounce any number of raiders, won't matter if there's 15 or 30 of them. No thugs in coat of scale in here.

EDIT: Computer illiterate here, but what makes a dev release his game in plain text or locked (.cnut)?

Sure, but mudcrabs were also easy in oblivion, after hitting level 20. Then a fucking minotaurs happened out of nowhere, completely anticlimatic. Something similar happens with geists/orks/necrosavants -you dont see them in first weeks of game. At least thats my experience.

 

[Sarissofoi]

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

I think they drop the "living world" around global map update(0.6 build if I remember correctly).
Before that enemy camps grow in power as far as they were successful, they sent scouting parties before raiding ones, you could actually weaken enemy camps by picking patrols, hunters and raiders they send(kind of siege), you could even backdoor orc camp when warlord go on raiding leaving only few grunts to guard the camp.
It had lost of potential but was unbalanced as hell(still fun). Also humans were weak to the pathetic levels. Thanks to ruskies hackers I still have some of the old builds on my hard drive.
Glory to Mother Russia.
Now we have scaling, contracts replacing garrisons at ruins/camps, camps spawning forces that not affect garrison strength, bandits suicide by cops etc.

They only scale in that the encounters get harder compositions, ie: more dudes and more more dangerous combos. Bad guys stats and equipment stay the same. By day 80 something you should be able to trounce any number of raiders, won't matter if there's 15 or 30 of them. No thugs in coat of scale in here.

Well that its true but its also feel silly when you see bandits parties with hedge knights and master archers everywhere.

Shields aren't really necessary imo. Heavy armor 2handers (axes, hammers, gs less so) plus billhooks with proper melee skill will take them out faster than one-handers... Which means less attacks on your guy so it's a wash in terms of damage received and you save time...

Two handers and heavy armor allow you kill orcs faster than they can kill you.
With shields its a slog as you quickly go out of fatigue(1 handers&shield have low fatigue to damage efficiency) and enemy will have more chances to lucky hit.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Okay now the game's just fucking with me.

Another early-ish game. Things just getting started, got to around level 3 - 4 for my vets, although with some heavy losses on the way. I get a two-skull bandit camp job. There's a boss. I kill him. On my way back, I get mugged by bounty hunters.

That's just not fair man.

You could have simply given them the head...
C&C

Is it me, or do enemy's stats scale with your lvl?
I finally grinded enough, so that certain amounts of certain enemies "should" be no-brainers only for them to really hurt me anyway...
That and some other aspects keep this game from being one of my favourites in recent years. (Still fun and I just wasted a week of vacation on it...)
Now hoping for mods to "fix" scaling (and brigand marksmen and orc charges), increase world sizes and to let me play as orc warbands or to rule the world with necromancy.

Yep. The dev spill some beans recently and explain that enemy bands scale with time(global) and company strength(so probably levels, average levels and backgrounds, dunno what about items).
Game can not be modded. Other than graphic and audio replacement(but its all meh).
All important text game files all locked into .cnut files that you can not do anything. So no modding, tweaking or balancing.
Its not Mount and blade where you can open Notepad++ and change stuff.
Sadly.

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

It's not nearly that bad imo. Also, bands scaling can mean numbers and types of enemies more than stats. I have no trouble getting ahead of the foe by a huge margin after a while. Expert ironman can be a chore from a resource standpoint though, but character progression wise I'm not really seeing the issue.
12 Standard lvl 11 daytalers and other rabble (avoiding certain negative traits) with maxed armor, 2handers in frontline, and maxed armor (with maybe less vision obstructing unique helmets... You can use bowman perk on crossbowmen for +1 vision so you can equip helmets with -2 vision at no penalty to crossbows, but due to uniques it may not be necessary and a waste of a perk point later) and crossbows/polearms in backline can take on pretty much anything. Just make sure you pay attention to some of the starting stats and go for certain stat milestones etc. Rush heavy armor, then greatweapons for frontline and billhooks for backline (or axes if you really want, I never use them anymore).
The game's gotten harder in the late pre-release and now release/postrelease time compared to a few months ago, but the basics still work.

And I guess if you want to get adventurous, taunt may be interesting with a different party composition than mine.

 

[Ezeekiel]

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

They only scale in that the encounters get harder compositions, ie: more dudes and more more dangerous combos. Bad guys stats and equipment stay the same. By day 80 something you should be able to trounce any number of raiders, won't matter if there's 15 or 30 of them. No thugs in coat of scale in here.

EDIT: Computer illiterate here, but what makes a dev release his game in plain text or locked (.cnut)?

Sure, but mudcrabs were also easy in oblivion, after hitting level 20. Then a fucking minotaurs happened out of nowhere, completely anticlimatic. Something similar happens with geists/orks/necrosavants -you dont see them in first weeks of game. At least thats my experience.

Nah, you can get them randomly in contracts in higher difficulties or meet them on the worldmap.

I've met orks on day 1 or 2. They had a berserker with them even.


During a save-scumming run through the release version I noticed that reloading a save that you made before discovering a location and then traveling back to that location... Could change the enemy types and numbers within, but it seems to vary depending on the type of location what sort of enemies you can get, even from the same faction.
Got something like... All ancient legionaries. Mix of legionaries and auxiliaries. All ancient honor guard (uh-oh). Ancient honor guard and one ancient priest guy (ow). All necrosavants (oh dear). Mix of necrosavants and something else.... Etc. All in 1 or 2 locations or something.

 

[Ezeekiel]

So the game has the "most beloved" feature of level-scalling in the worst oblivion-esque way? Hmm well that explains why i never feel like my band is getting stronger- because enemies keep up in pace. That's quite stupid, unless someone wants to play endlessly, which is probably a goal of only a few percent of players.

I think they drop the "living world" around global map update(0.6 build if I remember correctly).
Before that enemy camps grow in power as far as they were successful, they sent scouting parties before raiding ones, you could actually weaken enemy camps by picking patrols, hunters and raiders they send(kind of siege), you could even backdoor orc camp when warlord go on raiding leaving only few grunts to guard the camp.
It had lost of potential but was unbalanced as hell(still fun). Also humans were weak to the pathetic levels. Thanks to ruskies hackers I still have some of the old builds on my hard drive.
Glory to Mother Russia.
Now we have scaling, contracts replacing garrisons at ruins/camps, camps spawning forces that not affect garrison strength, bandits suicide by cops etc.

They only scale in that the encounters get harder compositions, ie: more dudes and more more dangerous combos. Bad guys stats and equipment stay the same. By day 80 something you should be able to trounce any number of raiders, won't matter if there's 15 or 30 of them. No thugs in coat of scale in here.

Well that its true but its also feel silly when you see bandits parties with hedge knights and master archers everywhere.

Shields aren't really necessary imo. Heavy armor 2handers (axes, hammers, gs less so) plus billhooks with proper melee skill will take them out faster than one-handers... Which means less attacks on your guy so it's a wash in terms of damage received and you save time...

Two handers and heavy armor allow you kill orcs faster than they can kill you.
With shields its a slog as you quickly go out of fatigue(1 handers&shield have low fatigue to damage efficiency) and enemy will have more chances to lucky hit.

Plus orks kill shields if they have enough axes. Esp. with the big axes... I'm glad warriors don't carry them.
Ork warrios + mansplitters would be a disaster hahaha

 

[Ezeekiel]

I am playing on beginner and I can't defeat multiple orc warriors or ancient legionaries

Beginner doesn't change the enemy stats or anything like that. You on average face less enemies relative to your own party size though from what I can tell. I can handle beginner with 6 bros for a large part of the game (unless I encounter large amounts of bandit marksmen early on...) until I'm forced to get more, but on harder difficulties no way...

Legionaries are mostly tough due to polearms... Undead spears and polearms are better against armor than regular versions.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Plus orks kill shields if they have enough axes. Esp. with the big axes... I'm glad warriors don't carry them.
Ork warrios + mansplitters would be a disaster hahaha

DELETE THIS NOW!!!

But yeah they would be crazy OP. Also Orcs have axe and cleaver mastery so they hit hard.

 

[Ezeekiel]

against enemy archers you need dodge,anticipation,nimble and light armor for your archers.my 120 initiative/90 fatigue archers always win the initial archer duels.

Shields aren't really necessary imo. Heavy armor 2handers (axes, hammers, gs less so) plus billhooks with proper melee skill will take them out faster than one-handers... Which means less attacks on your guy so it's a wash in terms of damage received and you save time.

i use 4 shields bros to tie them up and 2handed swords/hammers to flank them and kill them,its difficult to spec 7-8 bros with 2handers and heavy stuff and also to have the right stats.

Never been a problem for me tbh. I find one-handers+shields more stat intensive.

The dodge+initiative+nimble+anticipation light armor archers seem like a late-game strat too, I mean, you will get one/two-shotted earlier in the game or miss enemy archers behind their shieldgoons too much due to low initial bow skill? Or do you do normal archers first and then switch equipment later on when they are high level enough? I use tankier ranged guys because I can't get enough good ranged folks early on in the game to take out the enemy backline during turns 1-2. So tankier because the ranged fight will be dragged out now that the devs have nerfed the obstructed/hitchance perk.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Yeah you can level archers early as polearm or xbow users and that mean you can give them heavier armor and better helmets.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Just realized goblin poison reduces your action points by 3 now... Was that always the case? I got poisened before but just ignored it tbh.
Now I can't even swing a greatsword if I get poisoned... Gonna have to give everyone antidotes again. What a pain.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Just realized goblin poison reduces your action points by 3 now... Was that always the case? I got poisened before but just ignored it tbh.
Now I can't even swing a greatsword if I get poisoned... Gonna have to give everyone antidotes again. What a pain.

Yep. It also reduce vision.
You get back one 1ap/turn so antidotes doesn't really that useful.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Just realized goblin poison reduces your action points by 3 now... Was that always the case? I got poisened before but just ignored it tbh.
Now I can't even swing a greatsword if I get poisoned... Gonna have to give everyone antidotes again. What a pain.

Yep. It also reduce vision.
You get back one 1ap/turn so antidotes doesn't really that useful.

Ah, makes sense. How many AP does it take to use the antidote though? Would be amusing if it was a genuinely worse option than just ignoring the poison.

Surprised they made overwhelm be a late-game thing for frenzied direwolves... It was hilarious on regular direwolves and exactly the kind of fucking with the player you'd expect from this game.
Soon 120 initiative orks with overwhelm and 4AP mansplitter :D

 

[Sarissofoi]

It used to be 6 I think.
Maybe its less now. Never really used it. Not worth losing turn when you can either run or attack or make shieldwall.
Seriously bandages/antidote/shrooms should be accessed directly from belt/bags and used for free with quick hands(or at half the cost)
Accessory should be for real accessories(not consumables), talismans/trophies/tabards/sash/horns/drums etc.

 

[RK47]

 

[Sarissofoi]

Stats on hammer?

 

[golgo21]

so a noble war fired at day 95,i was serving a noble house when a representative from another noble house offered me to change sides which i promptly did and i got a unique 1handed hammer for my troubles!
too bad that at the last battle of the war i lost all the officers of my company to a fucking swordmaster

 

[Andnjord]

too bad that at the last battle of the war i lost all the officers of my company to a fucking swordmaster

Speaking of swordmasters, in my last battle my hammerbro ended up engaged against one; after one round my guy is down to half-health and armor and has a pierced hand thanks to a bloody 'friendly' crossbowman. It's the hammerbro's turn (lower initiative of course) and only has 5% chance to hit with his two handed hammer. Miraculously his swing connects and he staggers the sword master, giving enough time for the taunting cavalry to arrive and save his sorry ass (sadly the swordmaster ended up dying to a heavy bolt from my guys, no cheevos for me)

Seriously, taunt is probably my new favourite perk. I never used it before, but now I would probably consider my 70 melee skill, 60 melee defence (three stars!) cultist who uses it the MVP of my team.

 

[Andnjord]

Seriously, taunt is probably my new favourite perk. I never used it before, but now I would probably consider my 70 melee skill, 60 melee defence (three stars!) cultist who uses it the MVP of my team.

Explain? What's so good about taunt?

Got troubles with an enemy hiding behind his shield and riposte? Solved. Need to draw that swordmaster away from your 30 defense two hander toward your 50 defense tank? Solved. Necrosavant giving you headaches by attacking your backline? Solved. Give it to a tanky guy (high melee defense, max armor, defensive perks like shield master, steel brow, underdog...) and you'll be thankful.

 

[_V_]

against enemy archers you need dodge,anticipation,nimble and light armor for your archers.my 120 initiative/90 fatigue archers always win the initial archer duels.

Yeah well, my experience was my ranged dudes all had that (well, only one had nimble, but anyway) and then 1st round at night fighting marksmen and raiders: My ranged dudes are still all hiding behind the front line. Marksmen make 4 shots. Everyone hits. One of my ranged dudes dead. One crippled and one front-liner crippled. At night. At max range. My ranged dudes still hiding behind the front line and the front line equipped with shields...
In contrast my dudes had ~60-70% to hit on the shieldless enemy front line and proportionately worse chances on the back lines.
So sure, that might just have been really unlucky rng on my part, but it made me quit my veteran campaign an return to beginner like a pussy, where I now aim to go for a heavy armor pike/axes back line. Taking inspirations from the Ancient Legion. Also nice against wolf riders and necrosavants. Of course it comes with its own set of weaknesses and problems. Which makes the games so good (if far from perfect), imo.

As far as scaling goes: I'm perfectly fine with enemy bands/outposts increasing in size and getting more difficult in composition. As long as you still have lots of different options of what to fight. Kill 6 thugs for 200 gold or 6 orc warriors for 2000 gold and everything between and beyond. It's actually what I'd expect. It gives a sense of progression coupled with risk/reward management. Imo, it's what a combat/char development focused RPG should be like.
But above example of marksmen fucking me up didn't happen that way when my dudes were ~lvl 6. At that point I could encounter marksmen who'd actually miss free standing dudes without all the ranged defense perks in daytime. Or brigant raiders. It feels like my melee to hit chances stay similar between lvl 4 and 8, although average melee skill of my dudes increased significantly. The raiders also hit me back more successfully at higher lvls although melee defense increased at least a little bit. Might just be a feeling but atm I feel like I'm just beating them more successfully at lvl 8 than at lvl 4 because my equipment improved, not because my stats improved... I hope that's really just my feeling and not the case because that's the kind of lvl scaling I hate.