How to Strengthen Your Early Game - Battle Brothers Guide

I go through some strategies to make the first days of any campaign not a living nightmare. The early game of Battle Brothers is easily the hardest, so hopefully you learn something useful from this video!

[@Josh-qu1gs]

I've broken a cheap computer desk because of this game lol

[@CarveaHole]

I was almost foaming at the mouth last night. I fought against raiders and one bro did 0 damage in 12 rounds of attacks. Missed e v e r y attack he made. Didn't punch any holes in my wall though so improvement!

[@jonnysinclair2186]

Completely understandable

[@user-sg4ej2hq2z]

@@CarveaHole I know this feeling

[@lawsen3719]

This is incredibly useful, I have 5 hours in the game currently and I didn't know any of this stuff. The game has been hard as hell so far, fortunately I've played games with difficult learning curves such as Kenshi, so I have not been turned away from trying over and over again. So far I've lost like 7-8 campaigns, and my current run I lasted 10 days.

[@CarveaHole]

Glad it helped! If you're brand new and haven't seen it yet, I recommend my video "Battlefield Nuances". It should be featured at the top of my channel, but you can find it easily. It's probably the best video I've made, especially for new players. Lemme know if you have any questions about anything, I'll do my best to respond!

[@dericlima]

Thanks a lot. I have a lot of hours in this game, and I honestly suck at it. I'm constantly humbled, but I know that I'm making mistakes. Slowly I am improving but I can see this a game that I will play for a long time because I always go back to it. I love the complexity and the tactical aspect of the battles. This game is GOLD!!! I won't give up so I will continue my journey and learn more and more. Thanks Overhype for creating this!!!

[@roninart8112]

A very useful guide, you have just saved people lots of gameplay hours going back and forth and showing the way to enjoy the game by playing it right👍

[@mytiliss682]

Giving shields to cannon fodder first is interesting approach, it's like trying to abuse occasional caravans or troops to tank your enemies and steal frags but with your own guys. Though I prefer buying shields and spears first, even fully repaired they cost as much as most people worth hiring but don't ask daily wage. Suicidal attacks is more effective later, when you can arm cripples and beggars with trophies, especially hired after hard contract is assigned.

[@CarveaHole]

Once I get enough shields I'll give one to everybody, but in your first fight against 6 thugs you can get away with not having a shield on everybody. Spears are great, but flails ignore shields so that can sometimes be the best acc weapon against human enemies (and ancient undead)

[@mytiliss682]

@@CarveaHole it's exceptional against undead as they have no def without shield and love to spam them. But for human enemies spears are better early as they rarely spam or even have them before brigand thugs disappear. So I use flail as I trophy T3 one.

[@marcos9043]

DAMN i been playing alot an i realize how wrong i been playing thanks for this video

[@andreasschneider1628]

learned much after 100 hour playtime, thx

[@trenthogan4212]

I agree with everything except playing on Expert. I do well on Normal but find Veteran almost impossible. I cannot imagine Expert. I would have given up long ago. I am actually ready to throw in the towel on Veteran as it is so hard that it's not fun at all for me.

[@CarveaHole]

It's very rewarding to move up in your skill level. What I found works extraordinarily well is to watch people play on expert and then you can mirror their moves in your own game. FilthyRobot is good, and I have plenty of gameplay too if you'd prefer. You can always ask me questions and I'll do my best to give you feedback :)

[@Lyonatan]

Difficulty scaling in games like this are never ever EVER actually balanced, especially with indie games, they don't have the money, time or manpower to actually balance a game like this with all the starting options and all the dlc on top of it. Normal difficulty is what this game is meant to be played with, that's the way it was tested for years, that's how it was balanced, you change it to higher you gonna find yourself thinking of cheesing, exploiting or straight up cheating in the first 10 minutes, just like u see in this video, he didn't even start the game he was already talking about cheesing... Above normal I just call every difficulty "cheesy" or "exploity" because that's all you gonna do, you ignore half of the game mechanics, classes, builds, items, etc.... because they are useless on higher difficulties because nobody ever pays people to playtest games on "ultraviolencefullgoreironman". They just slap on 2 extra options 3 days before release with +/- 50% damage/hp and call it a day.

[@atlantic_love]

@@CarveaHole FilthyRobot just blabbers on and on and on.

[@techelitesareadisease8816]

@@Lyonatan it's a decently common practice for the 2nd hardest difficulty to be the "intended" design. Halo is the most prominent example

[@jasondavids3895]

Thanks for the tips, had this game on my watchist for a year and finally picked it up a few days back. Do you think theres any benefit in playing the base game first? Or just add the DLCs right away, as i intend to get them anyway.

[@CarveaHole]

You should definitely get the DLCs now if you'll get them eventually. I had the dilemma of not wanting to restart my main campaign but it was started before I had the DLCs so it was missing a lot of content. Better to learn it all at once, cause they do change up your strategy for the overall game.

[@jasondavids3895]

@@CarveaHole ill add them tonight :) thanks for the reply

[@CarveaHole]

@@jasondavids3895 You're welcome :) I reply as best I can so ask away

[@Tramorn]

Nice video

[@lord6617]

Any fixed item of a common sense multiple works. A shortbow is 200gp, nacherezer teeth are 200gp, I think javelins are 200 gp. So good prices become anything 35 and above, don't sell for under 30, and if you see prices over 40 sell everything, basically.

[@CarveaHole]

I mean that works too but just use a round shield which is worth 100 lol.

[@helmseye8689]

Thank you

[@Luca_Natoli]

This is coming to the Switch nex month. Going to get it. Looks hard and brutal. My type of game.

[@CarveaHole]

Damn right it is lol

[@AngryPeasant125]

Thats an understatement. You will never be safe

[@Luca_Natoli]

@@AngryPeasant125 I am looking forward to it 😀 .

[@Dead25m]

So, how do you find the game? :)

[@Luca_Natoli]

@@Dead25m it's awesome. I have pumped about 150 hours or so into the game so far on the Switch. It is a very good title, addictive, and yes can get brutally hard at times. I haven't discovered any bugs so far either. The team that ported it to the Switch did a great job and are always updating it.

[@ovanhackedid]

Didn't know that mountain increase view range for better scouting. Btw is it a good idea to have specialize dagger user to loot enemy armor even on later game?

[@CarveaHole]

Dagger spec is not needed to loot people late game, or ever. When you are daggering someone down, they are generally fleeing, which means you have all the time in the world to kill them. If they're fully surrounded by six bros, having one bro with an extra dagger attack doesn't add much. I give every bro a dagger so I get up to 12 punctures in a round, don't need to add any more. If an enemy isn't fleeing, I would use a bro with Taunt to taunt the enemy into attacking him. My tanky bros always have taunt, and you can run it on early fodder bros too!

[@mytiliss682]

Some people use dagger bros to puncture people right on start of the battle, but it's very demanding for stats and you can use such bros better. Though if you found good named dagger you can build someone for it. New southern dagger which have increased damage and ignore against certain debuffs is also viable.

[@CarveaHole]

Yeah if I was going to build a dagger spec character then I'd use the qatal dagger for sure. Who's good to puncture at the start of a fight? Brigands and nobles, really, but you can use almost any high tier weapon against human enemies. No way in hell am I bringing dagger dude against an orc warrior.

[@aylictal]

So what do you do when after the hoggart fight you go back to town and you see 6 brigand raiders attacking you next fight in full chain mail with a pike? Do you run from that scenario? A better guide video would be when you should run and when you shouldnt because that is what makes the game so hard when it throws bullshit amounts of crap at you when you're maybe a week into the game and you lose your entire party because donnie dipshit the farmhand misses 8 attacks in a row with 62 atk.

[@CarveaHole]

With time and experience comes the knowledge of what fights to take and not. I may be more comfortable taking a fight than someone else so I would recommend myself to take it but not them.

[@user-un-known]

If half my roster is injured and most armor is in shambles, I run from any fight. If my main dd bro is half healed and got half armor left... I think hard and may take on small group of not so strong mobs. Or may not. If my inventory is full. I also give fast adaptation early game to anyone without stars in atk, and may even give it to a bro with 1 star to hit more aoe. So Donnie The Dipshit won't miss 8 times in a row. He'll be at 95% acc after 5~6 swings. Fast adaptation, gifted and backstab work wonders. Crappy beggar will actually be hitting bodies somewhat consistently at lvl 4, especially with a spear or a flail against shieldwall. Even at lvl 3 he'd be able to contribute by poking with his sharp stick. Against early mobs that is. Having said that, I'm barely at day 65 on my second ever campaign. First one went to day 88, and then I abandoned it. Cuz reasons. Like realizing my roster is quite shitty and all over the place.

[@aylictal]

@@user-un-known i've missed 95% 4 swings in a row late game. it happens and the game doesnt care lol. also i've been attacked by witches and wargs which disable you from being able to run. the game is absolutely brutal on the harder difficulties and its sad but most of the guides i see are either people save reloading 20 fights in a row to kill some sort of raid group early for an early billhook or even worse, scouting the map and getting a golden goose within the first week. it seems in order to prevail at this game it requires some amount of stupid gameplay abuse in order to succeed. also i've done your approach of running when in bad shape, doesn't change a thing when the quests given to you are either fairly easy or impossible and the game doesnt give you any sort of indicator on how well equipped your current party is for a given fight. ive had single star contracts absolutely obliterate my entire squad, and three star contracts be easy peasey. its annoying and one thing i wish the devs would work around adjusting the game towards.

[@aylictal]

@@user-un-known one single star contract i had involved 2 bandit leaders attacking me at the same time. i cant remember the reasoning behind it but i asked on reddit and they said if two specific events line up at the right time a single starred contract can be 2 bandit leaders in a fight against you.

[@user-un-known]

@@aylictal Sure, you can miss 95% hit 4 times in a row. But that's 0.0006% chance of happening. Once per 10k swings. I ain't planning for that lol. No general strategy should account for something with that low of an occurrence. I grew up playing Fire Emblem. Aka "reset 100 times per map cuz you gonna keep missing 99% hits and get men killed cuz of 1 tile wrong spacing" so I have no problem reloading like mad. Though I don't really need to. Guides can only be general unless one wants to force a very specific way of playing with planned out hours. Even that double leader bs you ran into was rare, right? Tough luck, that's all I can say. And you had damn easy 3 stars too. But can't say don't take 1 star, take 3 stars, they're easy, right?

[@samuelmontenegroserniotti7146]

Peddlers are a better earlygame frontline than farmhands. Farmhands are often low on resolve.

[@CarveaHole]

Erm but peddlers roll 38-47 on matk and that's tragically bad.

[@samuelmontenegroserniotti7146]

@@CarveaHole I would argue that mdef and resolve are more needed for a frontline bro rather than matk. Plus farmhands often come with the tier1 polearm wich is nice

[@johnpotter5304]

Haha I use the "Trash" and "Meh" system as well

[@sesugawaaruno830]

Save Scumming is save scumming... Doesn't mean I won't do it because I'm not a try hard and I want to actually have fun in the game. For some Info: people have called me a Save Scummer in lots of games, for example, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, Xcom, Xcom 2 and lots of other games including This one... I will save and load and yes I will save scum because I want to have fun and not lose a run because of some stupid BS that often happens in games. The only way to stop me from Save-Scumming is by me playing IronMan Mode... and I rarely do that.

[@confidential5743]

I mean even ironman mode doesn't mean someone's run is clean. You can alt+f4 a fight and you're back before the point you lost your company. It's singleplayer, you're right to play it how you want. Not save scumming can mean losing a 40+ hour run just to start the grindy part of the game over again

[@mooseclamps]

the 'save scumming' moniker is being misused in the BB community. reloading because you 'lost' one of the RNG popups is save scumming. Retrying a battle because you lost too many valuable guys and then winning cleanly isn't save scumming.

[@sesugawaaruno830]

@@mooseclamps RNG popups? The events? Yeah those some times do tend to screw the player over but its not really a reason to save/reload... at least for me personally.

[@33awesomeman33]

@Vampiresoap That is why there are options my friend. Some people love being able to say they had a successful iron man run.. and the multiple failed runs along the way make the successful one that much sweeter.

[@fuhduh2544]

i like using save-scumming when i sense bullshit or if i make a dumb mistake, but force myself to play through inconveniences that feel "fair" (hard to explain, basically everything that isn't bullshit or just a missclick/mistake by distraction). Started doing this in rimworld and now doing it in BB, and i gotta say comebacks after failures make these games 1000 times more enjoyable than simply save-scumming till absolutely everything goes my way.

[@moonboy5851]

Great video, very helpful. Is there an easy way to farm brigands? Do they spawn on roads or anything?

[@CarveaHole]

Yeah they spawn commonly. Camps will spawn little parties that roam, so if you find those parties you know a camp is nearby

[@moonboy5851]

@@CarveaHole thank you! That’s great :) will try your tips today.

[@gutswildman8755]

Early days and gets ambush by orcs.

[@stilljustaguy]

I’m on my first game day 65 and I just need to start over. My guys are weak and I have no armor for more than two guys! I get whooped on every battle. I hope my next game starts off better. I want to enjoy this game but it’s so hard!

[@CarveaHole]

Took me 30 hours to not lose in my first 3 fights. What helped me was watching an experienced player. There's my Horrible Hybrids run but I also recommend some early seasons by FilthyRobot. There's others too obviously but I haven't watched them.

[@Crizzly122]

I have almost 70 hours in this game and I can't make it to day 50

[@CarveaHole]

What seems to be the largest issues? I'd love to help

[@Crizzly122]

@@CarveaHole I do fine for a while and I win like every fight on veteran difficulty losing like one or two guys every other fight and then Ill just hit a sudden difficulty spike and get wiped in one fight

[@CarveaHole]

@@Crizzly122 I recommend not playing on ironman while learning the game because it allows you to retake those hard fights to try and improve your gameplay. Making frequent saves does take away long term consequences and you can wean yourself off eventually, but I learned BB by saving before most big fights and trying until I won because of skill and not RNG.

[@Hendur]

I would disagree on the economic beginner difficulty For me, its like you said it with the combat difficulty: you won't learn anything if you are playing it on beginner and I personally think it makes the game a lot more easier and less complicated then it wants to be. This game isnt just focused around the combat, in my opinion to really experience the hardcore aspects of it, it is also a economic sim in some sense. You need to be thoughtfull on what you do next, where you buy your supplies, IF you even want to hire new men after a loss of brothers or if it is worth to take that contract. You are not just min maxing your winnings and earnings, sometimes you barely can keep up the costs you have with the contracts you are just so able to do in terms of difficulty. Typical risk reward system, which is SOOOO rewarding when you take a risk and then just got a hard task done. When you are finally able to buy that sword, that armor, hire that dude or whatev. Its such a rewarding feeling to finally, after hours of gamepley, have enough money to just spend it for shit. And you just dont get that feeling if you completely ignore this whole aspect of the game, which is giving you so much more thoughts on what you will do next.

[@CarveaHole]

I think the combat is most important, but you're right that easy economic does kinda dissolve a lot of the challenge.

[@pvfpinto]

Hi, agree with you, for that reason I use the mid term, veteran so I can have some room to faill.

[@batuhantopal7829]

Before u shoot this video why dont u just say us that "nah dont bother with this game its just grind"

[@CarveaHole]

Cause it's not.

[@Horkruxx]

Please buy yourself a decent mic, cant listen to you... But good guide ;)

[@CarveaHole]

Has been done about a year ago.

[@BoNicolai]

Dude fix your mic. I really want to watch the video but I can't distract :S

[@CarveaHole]

Got a new one for videos around December 2020.

[@BoNicolai]

@@CarveaHole Awesome! Thanks for letting me know. Keep up the good work :)

[@atlantic_love]

Video after video after video of guys blabbering on about this stat and that stat. If you're suggesting that it comes down to guy just having better attributes, then that's a fatal flaw in this game. At least some of your success should be in your strategy (where you move to in relation to your enemy).

[@CarveaHole]

It is largely about positioning. If you wanna see a video on that, I have a (great one imo) called Battlefield Nuances: Win With Positioning. Bros' stats are still important

[@atlantic_love]

@@CarveaHole Cheers.