Ideas for beginning party makeup.

[alation13]

So after starting a few times I have noticed that food is a crucial and "expensive" commodity. So I tried taking 3 hunters, 2 doctors, 1 scout, 3 soldiers and 1 scholor along as my beginning party. Since you pick up another soldier so early and you can not have more than 6 members fighting at a time. I was wondering if there was a downside to this party as I have so much food production that I can use it as a trade resourse.

[Lцсᶖаᶇ º¹]

Sounds pretty conventional to me.

[waku waku]

When you get to Mexico, there will be more areas outside of roads where guard difficulty will be very high so it might not be such a good idea. Besides, according to the developer only the captain's survival skill counts for hunting checks.

[Proteus]

Publicado originalmente por community toxin ♥:

When you get to Mexico, there will be more areas outside of roads where guard difficulty will be very high so it might not be such a good idea. Besides, according to the developer only the captain's survival skill counts for hunting checks.

Do you have any links to official statements for this?
If you look at the percentages when camped, you´ll see that the percentage for hunting goes up by a larger amount when adding people with higher hunting skill.
Also, the groups survival skill lists it as Captains Skill + Boni from number of hunters (just like it is for the other skills and their respective troop types). It would be a little bit misleading if (conrary to the values listed) it would only be the captains survival skill.

Aside from this I agree however ... 4 soldiers instead of just 3 are extremly useful for your guard percentage while being camped ...especially in terrain with a higher guard difficulty.
And considering the consequences for failed guard checks (that range from thefts of large percentages of items to rebel attacks (which, I think, are survivable only by use of large amounts of your (precious) traps) it is definitely better to have the guard percentage high, than the hunting percentage.

[alation13]

OK I was looking at that, and even in mountains I get around 85% guarding as long as I put all my guards on it (barely upgraded). If I swap one guard to scouting, I have bad effects. I noticed I get LOTS more boars wandering around the map which give me 20+ meat each instead of 10-20 each one. Not to mention every time I camp I gain a little food (sometimes lots) instead of use up a little food. But that is why I asked the forums about how viable it was.

[alation13]

As far as traps are concerned for catching thieves while camping, they are not an issue, the food production seems to be so high on the first map that I can afford to buy anything I want even without being able to use diplomacy to haggle the price down any lower.
Morale also is not an issue as even at double rations for a few members, the food from hunting from 3 hunters is higher than consumption. I am just rather surprised that one extra hunter has easily doubled the amout of food that I have been recieving.
I expected diminishing returns, as the camp percentages show rather than the exponential returns I have been actually gaining.

[Proteus]

That´s easy explainable ... I just checked the Logic Artists forum regarding their Maths (to check on the statement of community toxin, on whether the hunters make a difference for the survival skill) and found this:
Patch note 1.4.5:
- Changed the Meat calculations from Hunting again: it's now half your full Survival stat rounded up plus 1 Meat for everybody you send to hunt.
- Critical success for hunting: You get your full Survival stat in Meat if your Hunting probability is 5 times higher than the random roll.
http://logicartists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7404#p7404
With other words, if we assume that you always send the same number of people your additional hunter gives you a +1 on the total amount of meat you recover per hunt (or +2 on critical success)

[Pixel Peeper]

The number of people participating does have a positive effect this time... that's good.

It explains why I haven't been having issues with food despite having only two lower-rank Hunters. I send a Civilian, Amazon and usually even a couple Doctors to hunt with them, so that makes six hunters. Four of them have a base 6 skill in Hunting, meaning I get a decent probability of success, and having six people on the task instead of three gives me a +3 bonus on meat I didn't even know about.

Nice to know.

But now I'm wondering what effects non-standard NPC classes have on the Captain's stats... do they not give any bonuses, or do they have custom bonuses? A Trapper should give a bonus to Survival just like a Hunter does...

[Gregorovitch]

I think I read on the dev's forum they had adjusted the hunting algorythms so that it was basically impossible to be self-suffucient on food from standard nightly hunts. If you go out of your way to hunt for pigs etc you can usually find quite a lot however.

I would make sure you've got enough soldiers with high guard stats: on second map there a lot of high difficulty guard areas (not just next to roads) and since I think the stealing algorythms take a top-slice % off e.g. your valuables and you need a lot of valuables later game, you need to prioritize guarding to keep your loot or you will lose thousands to thieves.

Also herbs are a good bet for keeping well stocked: they are reasonably plentifull, seem to respawn, and are always in high demand so you can trade medicine for cartloads of food when you need to.

[Marbur]

Publicado originalmente por Tripoteur Ventripotent:

But now I'm wondering what effects non-standard NPC classes have on the Captain's stats... do they not give any bonuses, or do they have custom bonuses? A Trapper should give a bonus to Survival just like a Hunter does...

A trapper like Tayanna gives +2 to survival.
As far as I got native recruits they all give +2 Bonus to a skill.
You can see the sum of all the complete bonus at the stats in the quest screen.

[Proteus]

Publicado originalmente por Gregorovitch:

I think I read on the dev's forum they had adjusted the hunting algorythms so that it was basically impossible to be self-suffucient on food from standard nightly hunts. If you go out of your way to hunt for pigs etc you can usually find quite a lot however.

...

Actually with critical successes you can (still) get more food than you have members of your party (but of course you cannot get critical successes everytime).
Since my arrival in Mexico I haven't bought food even once ... my large hunting party, occasional patrols by my scout and a single soldier, as well as the occasional boar have been sufficient, to keep the food supplies around 200 since weeks

[waku waku]

http://logicartists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=952
seventh post in that thread

[Proteus]

Publicado originalmente por community toxin ♥:

http://logicartists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=952
seventh post in that thread

The posting you quoted is from July 2013 however ...
whereas the one I quoted in on eof my previous postings:
http://logicartists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7404#p7404
is from September
so I guess, unless someone finds a newer posting in which the return to an unmodified survival skill is announced, we can be sure that the number of hunters de facto plays a role

[alation13]

I still have my three origional hunters as well as the trapper from mexico now. I have been self sufficient with food the whole game on both islands. Since I gave myself a rather high survival skill that may help. I usually gain a few food each camp unless I fail badly at it. The boars on the map are useful if I feel like making a few hundred food for trading. I could be wrong but having a high survival skill and 3 hunters seems to make the boars give me more meat as well. When I had an average hunting skill each boar would usually give me 10-20 meat, with a high skill the appear to average 20-30 meat each.

[Pixel Peeper]

Publicado originalmente por Marbur:

Publicado originalmente por Tripoteur Ventripotent:

But now I'm wondering what effects non-standard NPC classes have on the Captain's stats... do they not give any bonuses, or do they have custom bonuses? A Trapper should give a bonus to Survival just like a Hunter does...

A trapper like Tayanna gives +2 to survival.
As far as I got native recruits they all give +2 Bonus to a skill.
You can see the sum of all the complete bonus at the stats in the quest screen.

Pretty cool, thanks.

[Marbur]

You are welcome.

I'm afraid I have to correct myself:
Citlalli has no bonus.