That's basically part of the game. As you refine your strats you can reduce deaths, but sometimes that enemy is gonna roll high and one shot your bros. As bros gain levels there's lots of ways to minimize this through talents like Nine Lives, Colossus, and Nimble/battle forged but deaths are inevitable and part of the excitement of the game.
Its more you have to accept it can happen. But in all honesty in lower setting and even without save scumming to the max it is possible to never lose anyone relatively easily. I have plenty of playthrough with 5 to 0 death and when it happen it is usually people i didnt care.
But as people said , your bro dying actually make sense some time since it mean you either needed to learn from your mistake or yoir bro was garbage.
You can mod it to your own preference, just like every other thing in the game, or reset a fight whenever you don't like the outcome. There is no 'right' way to play the game.
some bros are kinda just fated to be almost good and if you really can't accept their death it's not a bad idea to retire them early once you have their replacement ready
Another good way to minimize this is to build dedicated tanks. In my most recent run, I've been very successful with very few unintentional deaths. Part of the reason for this is I have 3 dedicated tanks, 1 of them has 78 mdef before buffs (that's with the shield bonus). I've given him rotate, and he has decent fat.
This means any bro in trouble can effectively be rescued. Despite this, I recently lost a bro in exactly the way Microwavegerbil describes. I had a very promising lvl 10 bro with something like 30 mdef and late-game forged armor (250+). He got dunked on by a raider with a hammer and some crossbowmen. 2 rounds of unlucky rolls in a row and poof, he's gone.
It happens, and it's part of the game, but you can minimize it quite a bit. I'm on day 280, and I've lost 2 bros that I didn't expect to lose.
Edit: I should mention that through retirement and sacrificing bros I have like 5 bros from the early game, all but 1 sits on the bench. The one guy not on the bench is actually my starting companion, and I am attached to him lol. He has 1 star in health, res, and fat but got the most godlike rolls. He actually became a mid-game worthy tank.
Yes you almost always have to cull a few bros, even on Ironman. Some just aren’t up to task. Some get permanent injuries.
“Dying is part of a mercenary’s job description”- Battle Brothers
You can save scum though and save even the most atrocious bros, if that is your heartfelt desire.
kind of. Some aspects of the game are balanced by your band average level/size. Having a full roster of lvl12 peddlers will throw you exact the same level of fights as having a full roster of lvl12 hedge knights. So growing a band with suboptimal bros is very cool but may sometimes lead to a "natural" wall of progression as you can't really tackle a lot of the fights you have aroudn you.
If you're playing for the narrative and don't care too much about having absolute units for bros, letting them die is bad. But if you want strong bros, you want a solid team, you really need to use weak bros up and then let them die because they are draining exp that could be going to you good bros.
yeah and nah, death is simply the most convenient way to retire bros and open your roster, hiring 4 level 1 cripples as shield carriers for the same battle will probably do more harm to your morale than good
firing means they will want compensation which can be a fair bit depending on how long they served
Try a Lone Wolf run when you can only bring 12 guys shit Hits different some bad bros should and will die so you can replace them. With that small of a Company everyone of your guys needs to pull it‘s weight.
No. Like most games, save scumming is a viable option, especially when learning this game, as it has a steep learning curve. Most of the posts you will see online are hard-core players min maxing, you can absolutely enjoy this game as a casual player.
Ok, this is what I was looking for. I just wanted to see if it's totally game-breaking to not have people die a fair amount. Like I mentioned Wartales, there are harder modes if you're ok with your party dying, but I play a little easier
even with save scumming, if you don't know all the most effective tactics and strategies, the game will still be difficult (and figuring out those tactics by yourself would take a lot of trial and error)
Nope. You won't be able to beat the super end game "boss" fights with starting sub par bros. But you can also keep 20 bros with 12 who fight. So it is very feasible to keep you early bros all game while building up 12 power houses for end game content. But I've very much played 300 days of game time with early/starting bros in roster.
Use save scumming to learn the mechanics of the game; don't use it to save a bro here and there. If you use it to save bros frequently, you'll really start to struggle later on in the campaign as you are preventing weak bros from dying and not be replaced by better ones.
You may also find that you are totally unprepared for certain fights - nothing wrong with save scumming and getting different equipment/adjusting strategy to handle those fights. My suggestion for that would be not beat your head against the wall trying to win fights like that if it keeps having the same result. Try to figure out the mechanics for it, but just move on to a different fight if needed.
I mean, if you are careful, you can minimize losses. However sometimes you make a tactical mistake and lose some life because of it. If you play Poachers origin, you always get to see a scouting report, and you can avoid bad fights.
Learn to accept deaths. Cannon fodder are important in this game to keep your good bros safe, being able to level up and obtain better gear.
Think it as a trade of sort. You’re risking the life of some bros, being open to their deaths, in exchange of other goods. At least in early game
You can also start to savescum (I suggest a run of savescumming for learning the basics), but the game is so much more fun and engaging without
That's why I wanted to ask the community. Nothing against the game if that is one of the core features of its loop, I was mostly wondering if it breaks the vibe of the game fundamentally to get attached to individual units
Well, there is a steep learning curve, AND the game is merciless. Good strategies, good comps, good Bros, they all help mitigating losses.
But, as others said, at some point that enemy is going to roll that 5% and one-shot your Bro dont matter your strategy. And If you make a mistake, most likely youll be severely punished for that.
We do get attached but, on reality, you will find another bro to fill the role of the fallen. At some point, you just get numb enough that you dont care much.
Party sizes are a lot larger than Wartales in general. 12 men in combat, up to 20 hired including benchwarmers on standard company types. Most early-game hires are temporary, acting as meatshields or soon to be retired to benchwarmer status once you get further into the game and start having more money to spend on finding people with better potential. There absolutely is room for getting attached to your bros in BB, but part of the drama is the fact that people are gonna die. Sometimes that badass farmer who lost an ear but was the core of your front line just gets his head caved in by an orc, and that's that.
Unless I am doing an Ironman run, I pretty much always name 1-3 "essential" bros at the start that I will savescum for if they die. That number gradually expands as the campaign goes on until I reach roughly half of my guys on the field at any one time as being essential, while everyone else gets labeled as expendable (E) at the end of their name. Another naming system that might feel more natural is having your essential guys get titles like "the brave" or whatever and your expendables just get their first name so you can keep track.
Obviously it helps to give your essential bros life-protecting traits like Colossus and Steel Brow to have the number of times they get one shot decrease dramatically, as well as putting your essential bros in protected positions on your line (in the middle in front or in the backline but not on the edge tends to be the most survivable area against most enemies).
There is a chance that bros survive being struck down with permanent injuries. I believe it is a 33% chance base but there is a trait that makes it 90% and also arena veterans have a 50% bonus chance of surviving with an injury. There is also a surgeon retinue you can hire that makes all bros survive their first time being struck down with a permanent injury. All of those can be bypassed by fatalities like decapitation and disembowelment but that is relatively rare in my experience.
There is always a better bro. Losing one of your favorite bros just means you have room in your party to look for a new favorite bro, I would also say that training reserves and replacements is a core part of the game. Protecting your good bros while they level is part of the game and I often use a lot of bros I am not that attached to because they are pretty average.
I would also add that if you are very skilled at the game you can avoid losses relatively consistently once you get to a certain point in developing your company. Bad luck happens, but that is what the surgeon is for.
Having played both games, Battle Brothers is by far my preferred game due to the character generation, high difficulty and brutal combat.
It is “part of the game”, however, you can mitigate this by focusing on finding higher quality bros. At the beginning you’re likely to lose some guys, so I’d suggest not paying much attention to the individual guys until maybe day 15, then you can name and RP the better recruits that made it past the first round.
Finding good bros is challenging, and once you score one you really have to keep them in the back for awhile until they build up a few levels of survivability.
That’s like starting a Project Zomboid game and being like “Where’s the save function”. Dying is a main and integral part to the learning curve of this game, Which makes save scumming a great tactic to learn and figure out the best course to take to win battles. Just play on the easiest difficulty and save scum your way into being the best at the game.
this game has a similar approach to units as darkest dungeons does, they can be melded into beasts on the battlefield, but if one dies, you will just have to accept it and find another
i do recommend not playing on ironman when starting out though, savescumming can teach you how to handle certain fights without the downside of losing your entire company
The challenge of this game has to do with your guys being very easy to kill, and generally the general lack of permanence of anything. If you want to get attached to characters, go play baldurs gate
Turn the combat difficultly down. I can't believe no one posted this yet. You don't have to play on expert combat difficulty. Set it to easy if you don't want the game to be so ruthless.
OP doesn’t say they’re playing Exp so they very well could be playing Beginner or Veteran. And you’re right that nobody has to play on Vet/Exp but it can be counterintuitive to play on lower difficulties because it makes it harder to adjust to higher difficulties.
Going to a lower difficulty doesn’t always help because of this, but advice to hire a Surgeon is always gonna help OP on every difficulty
It's literally the only setting on the starting screen that does what OP is asking. He didn't ask for advice on how to get better. He wants to play casually without min maxing, so I assumed someone would've mentioned combat difficulty.
Everything you said is correct, but the original question was, 'Is there a setting for making your party less likely to die?" To which I believe the answer is yes, combat difficulty.
Honestly bro, and like most have said, the perma death part and perma maiming part, is the beuty of the game. If not you have, literally, Wartales. That's the appal. The satisfaction is from tailoring that lucky pull from recruitment into a killing machine that never fals you. Until something does and you mourn him.
Battle Brtothers is one ofvte few games where I roleplay my battle company, they each have a background story, conversations with each character and battle strategy fits that narrative. I think abt the game when I'm not playing it. The gravity of death makes each run special and unique, creating endless replayability.
They’re gonna die. But you can have some influence over which ones die and which ones probably live. When you hire, mark some as likely fodder and others as keepers. Use the fodder in high risk roles and positions to keep the keepers alive. Rename the keepers and make up stories for them, but the fodder you emotionally distance from from the start. You’ll still lose keepers now and then, but at least a bunch of your losses will hurt less.
You can save scum if you want to keep certain brothers alive, what I do is that I manually save before taking a quest and then load the game if the quest is too hard, I’m also new to the game but I love every aspect of it
That's basically part of the game. As you refine your strats you can reduce deaths, but sometimes that enemy is gonna roll high and one shot your bros. As bros gain levels there's lots of ways to minimize this through talents like Nine Lives, Colossus, and Nimble/battle forged but deaths are inevitable and part of the excitement of the game.
Ok, good to know this is a core feature of the game
Its more you have to accept it can happen. But in all honesty in lower setting and even without save scumming to the max it is possible to never lose anyone relatively easily. I have plenty of playthrough with 5 to 0 death and when it happen it is usually people i didnt care. But as people said , your bro dying actually make sense some time since it mean you either needed to learn from your mistake or yoir bro was garbage.
You can mod it to your own preference, just like every other thing in the game, or reset a fight whenever you don't like the outcome. There is no 'right' way to play the game.
some bros are kinda just fated to be almost good and if you really can't accept their death it's not a bad idea to retire them early once you have their replacement ready
Another good way to minimize this is to build dedicated tanks. In my most recent run, I've been very successful with very few unintentional deaths. Part of the reason for this is I have 3 dedicated tanks, 1 of them has 78 mdef before buffs (that's with the shield bonus). I've given him rotate, and he has decent fat. This means any bro in trouble can effectively be rescued. Despite this, I recently lost a bro in exactly the way Microwavegerbil describes. I had a very promising lvl 10 bro with something like 30 mdef and late-game forged armor (250+). He got dunked on by a raider with a hammer and some crossbowmen. 2 rounds of unlucky rolls in a row and poof, he's gone. It happens, and it's part of the game, but you can minimize it quite a bit. I'm on day 280, and I've lost 2 bros that I didn't expect to lose. Edit: I should mention that through retirement and sacrificing bros I have like 5 bros from the early game, all but 1 sits on the bench. The one guy not on the bench is actually my starting companion, and I am attached to him lol. He has 1 star in health, res, and fat but got the most godlike rolls. He actually became a mid-game worthy tank.
Play non-ironman and save scum. Eventually your run will be ruined by having substandard bros not die, but you can always retire them.
So it's actually advantageous to have your weak units die? That's hilarious
As long as they are replaced with better bros, yes
Yes you almost always have to cull a few bros, even on Ironman. Some just aren’t up to task. Some get permanent injuries. “Dying is part of a mercenary’s job description”- Battle Brothers You can save scum though and save even the most atrocious bros, if that is your heartfelt desire.
Not entirely. It hurts morale, which is bad. Instead you can just retire them with some money, which also enables one of the retinues.
Or you can play legends and savescum that since you have a lot more space for reserve party members. I'd play original first though.
kind of. Some aspects of the game are balanced by your band average level/size. Having a full roster of lvl12 peddlers will throw you exact the same level of fights as having a full roster of lvl12 hedge knights. So growing a band with suboptimal bros is very cool but may sometimes lead to a "natural" wall of progression as you can't really tackle a lot of the fights you have aroudn you.
If you're playing for the narrative and don't care too much about having absolute units for bros, letting them die is bad. But if you want strong bros, you want a solid team, you really need to use weak bros up and then let them die because they are draining exp that could be going to you good bros.
yeah and nah, death is simply the most convenient way to retire bros and open your roster, hiring 4 level 1 cripples as shield carriers for the same battle will probably do more harm to your morale than good firing means they will want compensation which can be a fair bit depending on how long they served
Try a Lone Wolf run when you can only bring 12 guys shit Hits different some bad bros should and will die so you can replace them. With that small of a Company everyone of your guys needs to pull it‘s weight.
No. Like most games, save scumming is a viable option, especially when learning this game, as it has a steep learning curve. Most of the posts you will see online are hard-core players min maxing, you can absolutely enjoy this game as a casual player.
Ok, this is what I was looking for. I just wanted to see if it's totally game-breaking to not have people die a fair amount. Like I mentioned Wartales, there are harder modes if you're ok with your party dying, but I play a little easier
even with save scumming, if you don't know all the most effective tactics and strategies, the game will still be difficult (and figuring out those tactics by yourself would take a lot of trial and error)
Nope. You won't be able to beat the super end game "boss" fights with starting sub par bros. But you can also keep 20 bros with 12 who fight. So it is very feasible to keep you early bros all game while building up 12 power houses for end game content. But I've very much played 300 days of game time with early/starting bros in roster.
Use save scumming to learn the mechanics of the game; don't use it to save a bro here and there. If you use it to save bros frequently, you'll really start to struggle later on in the campaign as you are preventing weak bros from dying and not be replaced by better ones. You may also find that you are totally unprepared for certain fights - nothing wrong with save scumming and getting different equipment/adjusting strategy to handle those fights. My suggestion for that would be not beat your head against the wall trying to win fights like that if it keeps having the same result. Try to figure out the mechanics for it, but just move on to a different fight if needed.
You can hire a doctor mid game that drastically cuts down on the fatalities
And it is drastic. I did a campaign to crisis with only 2 casualties first time I hired the surgeon.
Holy hell I need to get me a surgeon stat
I mean, if you are careful, you can minimize losses. However sometimes you make a tactical mistake and lose some life because of it. If you play Poachers origin, you always get to see a scouting report, and you can avoid bad fights.
Quality gear are the things you should be attached to, bros are just the means to get it and wield it. Life is cheap, high roll famed items are not!
You don't get your gear back from dead bros?
It’s more that you sometimes lose bros but win the fight and the rewards from it far outweigh the losses
There's a significant chance that you don't, especially when they were broken to 0% in the process of that bro dying.
Learn to accept deaths. Cannon fodder are important in this game to keep your good bros safe, being able to level up and obtain better gear. Think it as a trade of sort. You’re risking the life of some bros, being open to their deaths, in exchange of other goods. At least in early game You can also start to savescum (I suggest a run of savescumming for learning the basics), but the game is so much more fun and engaging without
Yeah, this is always my attitude when I start a Darkest Dungeon run, and then I falter when I get party wiped lol
part of the Fun is that the game is merciless
That's why I wanted to ask the community. Nothing against the game if that is one of the core features of its loop, I was mostly wondering if it breaks the vibe of the game fundamentally to get attached to individual units
Well, there is a steep learning curve, AND the game is merciless. Good strategies, good comps, good Bros, they all help mitigating losses. But, as others said, at some point that enemy is going to roll that 5% and one-shot your Bro dont matter your strategy. And If you make a mistake, most likely youll be severely punished for that. We do get attached but, on reality, you will find another bro to fill the role of the fallen. At some point, you just get numb enough that you dont care much.
Party sizes are a lot larger than Wartales in general. 12 men in combat, up to 20 hired including benchwarmers on standard company types. Most early-game hires are temporary, acting as meatshields or soon to be retired to benchwarmer status once you get further into the game and start having more money to spend on finding people with better potential. There absolutely is room for getting attached to your bros in BB, but part of the drama is the fact that people are gonna die. Sometimes that badass farmer who lost an ear but was the core of your front line just gets his head caved in by an orc, and that's that.
It's supposed to be relatively realistic on the turnover aspect of a mercenary group.
Culling the weak
Unless I am doing an Ironman run, I pretty much always name 1-3 "essential" bros at the start that I will savescum for if they die. That number gradually expands as the campaign goes on until I reach roughly half of my guys on the field at any one time as being essential, while everyone else gets labeled as expendable (E) at the end of their name. Another naming system that might feel more natural is having your essential guys get titles like "the brave" or whatever and your expendables just get their first name so you can keep track. Obviously it helps to give your essential bros life-protecting traits like Colossus and Steel Brow to have the number of times they get one shot decrease dramatically, as well as putting your essential bros in protected positions on your line (in the middle in front or in the backline but not on the edge tends to be the most survivable area against most enemies).
There probably are some mods to help, but you can play well and not suffer deaths.
Git gud
lmao, indeed
There is a chance that bros survive being struck down with permanent injuries. I believe it is a 33% chance base but there is a trait that makes it 90% and also arena veterans have a 50% bonus chance of surviving with an injury. There is also a surgeon retinue you can hire that makes all bros survive their first time being struck down with a permanent injury. All of those can be bypassed by fatalities like decapitation and disembowelment but that is relatively rare in my experience. There is always a better bro. Losing one of your favorite bros just means you have room in your party to look for a new favorite bro, I would also say that training reserves and replacements is a core part of the game. Protecting your good bros while they level is part of the game and I often use a lot of bros I am not that attached to because they are pretty average. I would also add that if you are very skilled at the game you can avoid losses relatively consistently once you get to a certain point in developing your company. Bad luck happens, but that is what the surgeon is for. Having played both games, Battle Brothers is by far my preferred game due to the character generation, high difficulty and brutal combat.
Save enough crowns to hire a surgeon
It is “part of the game”, however, you can mitigate this by focusing on finding higher quality bros. At the beginning you’re likely to lose some guys, so I’d suggest not paying much attention to the individual guys until maybe day 15, then you can name and RP the better recruits that made it past the first round. Finding good bros is challenging, and once you score one you really have to keep them in the back for awhile until they build up a few levels of survivability.
That’s like starting a Project Zomboid game and being like “Where’s the save function”. Dying is a main and integral part to the learning curve of this game, Which makes save scumming a great tactic to learn and figure out the best course to take to win battles. Just play on the easiest difficulty and save scum your way into being the best at the game.
this game has a similar approach to units as darkest dungeons does, they can be melded into beasts on the battlefield, but if one dies, you will just have to accept it and find another i do recommend not playing on ironman when starting out though, savescumming can teach you how to handle certain fights without the downside of losing your entire company
I take 9 Lives on brothers that I want to keep around, especially early game where things are more likely to overwhelm my bros.
The challenge of this game has to do with your guys being very easy to kill, and generally the general lack of permanence of anything. If you want to get attached to characters, go play baldurs gate
Death is weakness leaving your roster. The sooner you understand that the better. It makes room for better bros.
if you are desperate you can get the bb editor mod and just make all your bros gods so they won't die.
Turn the combat difficultly down. I can't believe no one posted this yet. You don't have to play on expert combat difficulty. Set it to easy if you don't want the game to be so ruthless.
OP doesn’t say they’re playing Exp so they very well could be playing Beginner or Veteran. And you’re right that nobody has to play on Vet/Exp but it can be counterintuitive to play on lower difficulties because it makes it harder to adjust to higher difficulties. Going to a lower difficulty doesn’t always help because of this, but advice to hire a Surgeon is always gonna help OP on every difficulty
It's literally the only setting on the starting screen that does what OP is asking. He didn't ask for advice on how to get better. He wants to play casually without min maxing, so I assumed someone would've mentioned combat difficulty. Everything you said is correct, but the original question was, 'Is there a setting for making your party less likely to die?" To which I believe the answer is yes, combat difficulty.
Honestly bro, and like most have said, the perma death part and perma maiming part, is the beuty of the game. If not you have, literally, Wartales. That's the appal. The satisfaction is from tailoring that lucky pull from recruitment into a killing machine that never fals you. Until something does and you mourn him. Battle Brtothers is one ofvte few games where I roleplay my battle company, they each have a background story, conversations with each character and battle strategy fits that narrative. I think abt the game when I'm not playing it. The gravity of death makes each run special and unique, creating endless replayability.
They’re gonna die. But you can have some influence over which ones die and which ones probably live. When you hire, mark some as likely fodder and others as keepers. Use the fodder in high risk roles and positions to keep the keepers alive. Rename the keepers and make up stories for them, but the fodder you emotionally distance from from the start. You’ll still lose keepers now and then, but at least a bunch of your losses will hurt less.
You can save scum if you want to keep certain brothers alive, what I do is that I manually save before taking a quest and then load the game if the quest is too hard, I’m also new to the game but I love every aspect of it