Battle Brothers - a turn based strategy RPG mix for PC, Mac and Linux.

Here is this weeks dev blog on what we are doing with enemy factions and subfactions:

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Dev Blog #83: Enemy Factions

With work on the last big update now on the way, let’s take a look at what we’re going to do with enemy factions on the worldmap in order to make the world more interesting and dynamic, and how it’ll affect you as the player.

Enemy Factions

Enhancing the presence of factions for a more dynamic world is one of the goals of the upcoming update, and this includes enemy factions. Previously, enemy locations, like bandit camps, just got different banners assigned randomly, which then were also used by any parties created by that location, and that was it. Now, we’re going to introduce actual independent sub-factions, like orc clans and goblin states, which occupy territories on the worldmap and seek to expand them.

Orcs, goblins, bandits and undead each received half a dozen or more new banners on par in quality with the new mercenary banners introduced not long ago. You’ll be able to see by those banners on the worldmap where a faction holds power much like you currently do with noble houses. Take a look below to see a very strong orc faction fond of grates in the southern part, smaller goblin and orc factions bordering them, and a strong goblin faction to the north.

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Factions are most active near their territory - sending out patrols, hunting or raiding parties, and actively defending their territory against intruders. While this was somewhat the case before already, it now also applies to contracts. In previous versions we often had to spawn locations and enemies all around the world artificially as part of contracts, just to give you enough to do. With a steadily increasing number of different contracts, however, we can now go back to having contracts appear when there is actually a specific threat in the vicinity, safe in the knowledge that there’ll always be some kind of work to be found.

For example, settlements bordering orc territory are now much more likely to require your help in fighting off orcs, and conversely, destroying that single orc camp near a town will erase that threat, and thereby the need for contracts against orcs, for good. Or at least until other orcs make their way into this part of the world. If you prefer to stay clear of orcs for now, you’re advised to just travel to a different part of the land where orcs have less of a foothold. Of course, those orcs may then expand their territory and grow stronger while you’re not there to keep them in check.

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To underline further that you’ll be fighting not just randomly spawned parties, but parties actually belonging to factions and doing their part in helping theirs to expand, the combat engage screen now shows banners of all enemy factions involved in a battle in full detail on the right, and your own banner, as well as the banners of all allies taking part in the battle, to the left.
 
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We talked about it a while ago but the rework of the skeletons is finally here. In this blog post you can read about their lore, weapons and tacics. Enjoy!

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Dev Blog #85: The Ancient Dead, Part I


We've put to rest the old skeletons only to resurrect them as the 'ancient dead'. This week we're taking a tour through their new lore, weapons and armor, fighting style and enemy types. Let's delve in!

Introduction

The very first opponents in Battle Brothers were the undead. They were a good starting point for testing combat mechanics and developing the AI, but this early in development we didn’t yet put as much thought into their design as we’d do with later opponents. Moving on to develop orcs and goblins, we made sure that those had a certain level of cultural background reflected in their visuals, and in their choice of weapons and armor, and that they had a fighting style of their own, one that challenges players in unique ways and requires different tactics to beat reliably. In contrast, there isn’t really anything unique about how skeletons fight in the game, or about how they look. They’re just your generic fantasy skeletons - until now.

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The world wasn’t always like it is now. Ruins dot the map, mass graves, sunken castles. But where did they come from?

Many hundred years ago, in a different era, an empire of man spanned much of the known world. What has fallen into ruin now, what was abandoned to nature and beast, what has long been forgotten, all this was that of man once. An empire, not of petty noble houses, but one of a dozen provinces, from the frozen tundra of the north to the blistering sands of the south, of a dozen peoples under one banner.

So many peoples, so many cultures and ideas under one roof, all vying to pull the empire into a direction of their own. Could those not be reconciled? Did they, in the end, just pull the empire apart? As remote lands became provinces of the empire, so could local cults become religions that swept across its entirety. Was the authority of the emperor lost to religion? Was it the gods that punished man for worshipping spirits that promised to give what they would not?

Does it matter now what brought it down? The ancient dead are rising again, not living and yet not dead. Long lost legions heed the call of their emperor. They march once more, tirelessly and without emotion, to claim again what was once theirs. What brought down the empire in the end, and what is bringing it back to unlife, is for you to piece together based on clues hidden within the world, if you want to learn more.

The Ancient Legions

The bulk of the ancient dead is made up of the ancient legions. They are what conquered most of the known world once, and they may well do so again. Legions that never tire, legionnaires that know no fear, a cold machine that ever marches forward. What could stop them?

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The legions fight like they did hundreds of years ago - in tight formation two ranks deep, with shields in front and polearms in the back. They rely quite heavily on the front row providing protection with their shields and locking down the enemy, while the second row uses polearms to inflict heavy damage on their opponents. A formation like this doesn’t charge like undisciplined rabble, but advances slowly and makes heavy use of shields to protect against arrow fire. They don’t possess any ranged weaponry and don’t do flanking maneuvers, preferring to simply walk through any enemy. Because much of their strength is in their formation, they’re at a disadvantage when fighting in difficult terrain, such as forests. They are also the missing piece of the puzzle that makes resolve an important attribute, as fighting them continually puts a test to the morale of the men.

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The ancient legions come with a whole lot of unique armor, helmets and weapons. It’s old, it’s brittle and sometimes broken, but it can still be deadly. All of it, except for some cloth rags, is lootable and can be equipped by your Battle Brothers.

Ancient Auxiliary

Recruited from local vassals was the light infantry, the ancient auxiliaries. Because Battle Brothers, at least for now, focuses on a pseudo-germanic region of the world, the equipment of these auxiliary troops is based on the look of ancient germanic and celtic warriors.

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An auxiliary is armed with spear, short sword or falx - a new weapon unique to them. They’re lightly armored, often just with the remains of cloaks sporting the pattern of their ancient clans, and sometimes helmets passed down through the family. Time has taken a toll on both weapons and armor, and so you may find them attacking with broken swords seemingly unaware of it

Ancient Legionary

Ancient legionnaires make up the medium infantry. Once professional soldiers, legionnaires enlisted for several years to be trained and used in the empire’s campaigns in exchange for land they could settle at and call their own. Legionnaires are well-armed with metal armor, sword and shield, or pike.

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Legions from all the different eras of the empire answer its call, so you’ll find legionnaires that died a hundred years apart, all with different armor, helmet and shield design, to march together.

Ancient Honor Guard

Recruited from the ranks of veteran legionnaires are the ancient honor guard, once used as personal bodyguards and as heavy infantry to tip the scales of battle. The highest honor a common legionary could hope to achieve, joining the honor guard involved a symbolic death to shed the weakness and frailty of man, and being transformed into a tool of the emperor. No longer a man, but the manifestation of the emperor’s will, the honor guard was encased entirely in armor that did not show any flesh, becoming essentially a living, moving and fighting statue.

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Honor guards make use of heavy weaponry from all corners of the ancient empire, such as the warscythe, the rhomphaia and a two-handed cleaver. They were once among the finest and most dedicated warriors of their time, and although now but bones in rusty armor, their skill still echoes through their every swing of the sword.

But wait, there’s more!

We’ll conclude our presentation of the ancient dead in next week’s dev blog with the overhauled vampire, as well as the introduction of an entirely new enemy to fight against. How exciting!
 
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Will this ever make it to GOG ?

They are in negotiations with GOG now. They mentioned it in one of their updates.

I am at 300 hours played. About 50 hours has been AFK but I am still playing and think it is fantastic. Playing it in iron man now and that really adds the tension.
 
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Since when this is on Mac? Never as far I know.

It gets a fame good enough, and seems fit my tastes enough so anyway I'll play win version, but frankly indie games have much less chance I play them if they aren't on Mac.
 
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I've started playing this, I'm about four hours in and loving it so far. If I'd known months ago that this was strictly weapon combat based with no silly magic, I might have jumped in on the first day.
 
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I'm still playing BB and love it. I love all the different combinations you can give to your merc squad. I haven't played Elax or D:OS2 yet because I'm having so much fun with BB. I will give you some advice. Get some hammer weapon masters for the heavy armor orcs and knights. That will make the latter part of the campaign easier.
 
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The expansion will feature steampunk weapons and "power armor".
 
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Hey i was looking into Battle Brothers...I saw a bunch of people said they announced no more dev on the game, but i searched and could not find the actual announcement. Was it on their website or here somewhere? Can someone link it? I'm wondering the details and what they are currently working on...
Thanks
 
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I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere as well a few months ago, that there would be no more content/expansions for the base game Battle Brothers. I don't recall where I saw it though, sorry. But wow, what a great game, and it doesn't really need anymore stuff as it is currently awesome as is.

You, as for a comparison to Dungeons of Chaos, they are both quite similar in the way combat functions, except in Battle Brothers the terrain is often a huge factor. It is also necessary to manage your squad in such a way that you don't waste funds or overlap in too many skill areas. If you ever get to the point where the Chaos game seems too easy/simplistic, I'd suggest giving Brothers a go because that will step things up quite a bit.
 
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Hey i was looking into Battle Brothers…I saw a bunch of people said they announced no more dev on the game, but i searched and could not find the actual announcement. Was it on their website or here somewhere? Can someone link it? I'm wondering the details and what they are currently working on…
Thanks

It's in Steam on the Battle Brothers update page. It was announced last September they were done with the game. They have released one free DLC and 2 or 3 updates since then. I have 700 hours played. What a great game.

I have a squad of lvl 20 mercs right now with a bunch of magic items. Trying to take out the Black Monolith without cheating or cheesing it. It's the last achievement I need :)
 
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Thanks Hastar and Carnifex. I mostly wanted to know what they were working on now. I did find this on Steam:
"A part of game development is making tough decisions on where to spend your limited time. In creating Battle Brothers we, too, had to make concessions in order to make the game happen. Unfortunately, this now makes things like translations and mod support unfeasible, as much as we’d like to offer them, and expanding the game beyond its initial concept an increasingly unwieldy endeavour.

We’ve thought long and hard about where we want to go from here. After working on the same game for almost five years now, we’ve come to realize that it is time to move on. Creating Battle Brothers has always been about building the game we want to play ourselves, and furthering ourselves as game developers, and we believe that taking all the lessons learned here to create a new game dear to us is the right next step to take.

Development on Battle Brothers is concluded with today’s update – although we’ll of course continue to provide bugfixes, as necessary. We have a very good idea of the game we want to create next, and we’re enthusiastic to get started. It won’t be Battle Brothers 2, but if you enjoyed playing Battle Brothers, chances are good you’ll really enjoy our next game, too. We look forward to tell you all about it in the future. It’ll even have legs!"
http://steamcommunity.com/games/365360/announcements/detail/2111474257131482482
 
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Honestly though, if you enjoy these types of games, you simply cannot go wrong with Battle Brothers. Even at full price, it is totally worth every cent, and that's not something I say lightly about any game.

And I'll quite likely be right at the front of the line when their new game comes out, perhaps even on day one!
 
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Hmmmm I really thought they were finished with the game entirely. Then again, if the new content is meaty I've no problem at all going back to this fine game, I'll probably just do a whole new replay.
 
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Hmmmm I really thought they were finished with the game entirely. Then again, if the new content is meaty I've no problem at all going back to this fine game, I'll probably just do a whole new replay.

I just did one :)
I have never gone through all of the late-game crises though.
The games tend to get long-winded after a while.

Although I think I now know the difficulty I like playing at. It's Easy on all settings, except that I include Ironman on. That seems to balance my game perfectly.

I feel like veteran is only possible with tons of reloads and being crazy lucky with the map/starting position...

I may try with veteran economic difficulty once the DLC comes out, but I wouldn't change the combat difficulty.


Anyone here playing on higher difficulties ?
 
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I play at veteran difficulty with veteran economy. I don't have to do many reloads unless I start at a really bad disadvantage with all the enemy archers at height. Every once in awhile I have to reload early on if a lucky shot takes out one of my favorite brothers.

I don't play on iron man usually because it can be a pain early on but I have won a crisis or two on iron man. I also usually start with extra starting funds. Another reason I don't like iron man is that if I spend a ton of cash on a sell sword or hedge knight and their stats suck I will reload.
 
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