What happens when you wipe a guard party?

[Lampros]

Consequences? And is this even realistic for an early-game party?

[Demolaye]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Consequences? And is this even realistic for an early-game party?

Are you referring to a travelling merchant's guards?
If so the consequences is raising your notoriety usually somewhere between 20-80 points.
The higher your notoriety the more often guard parties (from the local government) will try to stop you.
In the first area you can likely take out a merchant or county patrol with 7-8 level 3-4 mercs.

[esx9]

It's like grand theft auto where your star value will keep increasing and they will come after you harder and harder the more you fight them. At some point you will either have to lay low for a long time or pay a penalty which is gold and or jail. Group members who end up in jail might get negative traits.

[mrak20105]

If you destroy a guard, your suspicion level goes up and the guard hunts you. You destroy the second guard squad, and it gets 1 reinforcement. You destroy that squad, and the next squad gets 2 reinforcements. I don't know the specifics of the Regional Lock, but on Adaptive Research Mode, maximum difficulty, and with enemy moves turned off, you won't be able to defeat the guard at the initial level without losing at least one of your companions.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Demolaye:

Are you referring to a travelling merchant's guards?
If so the consequences is raising your notoriety usually somewhere between 20-80 points.
The higher your notoriety the more often guard parties (from the local government) will try to stop you.
In the first area you can likely take out a merchant or county patrol with 7-8 level 3-4 mercs.

The guards who roam around.

Hmm, that doesn't sound much of an increase? Perhaps 1 ambush is worth it? I am trying to get some equipment loot! ;)

Originally posted by esx9:

It's like grand theft auto where your star value will keep increasing and they will come after you harder and harder the more you fight them. At some point you will either have to lay low for a long time or pay a penalty which is gold and or jail. Group members who end up in jail might get negative traits.

Hmm, that is concerning. If I just wipe 1 party and then stop, then will they still chase me?

Originally posted by mrak20105:

If you destroy a guard, your suspicion level goes up and the guard hunts you. You destroy the second guard squad, and it gets 1 reinforcement. You destroy that squad, and the next squad gets 2 reinforcements. I don't know the specifics of the Regional Lock, but on Adaptive Research Mode, maximum difficulty, and with enemy moves turned off, you won't be able to defeat the guard at the initial level without losing at least one of your companions.

Is there a way to get away with just getting rid of 1 guard patrol for equipment loot and not have them bother you ever?

[mrak20105]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by Demolaye:

Is there a way to get away with just getting rid of 1 guard patrol for equipment loot and not have them bother you ever?

If you manage to ambush the Guard (dagger sign) is given when attacking from the forest, if the enemy did not see you, then 1 star of suspicion is possible. But the ambush is quite difficult to implement. Sometimes the enemy sees you from afar. Suspicion can be dropped by handing over prisoners to prison, and completing the passage in Greenmir. But since you chose the Regional passage, you will have to run a lot around Tiltern, instead of searching for resources and trading. Quite troublesome and irrational.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by mrak20105:

Originally posted by Lampros:

Is there a way to get away with just getting rid of 1 guard patrol for equipment loot and not have them bother you ever?

If you manage to ambush the Guard (dagger sign) is given when attacking from the forest, if the enemy did not see you, then 1 star of suspicion is possible. But the ambush is quite difficult to implement. Sometimes the enemy sees you from afar. Suspicion can be dropped by handing over prisoners to prison, and completing the passage in Greenmir. But since you chose the Regional passage, you will have to run a lot around Tiltern, instead of searching for resources and trading. Quite troublesome and irrational.

Got it. It's just not worth it for equipment loot then. Besides, I probably can't handle a guard party until I am well-equipped anyways! ;)

[mrak20105]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by mrak20105:

If you manage to ambush the Guard (dagger sign) is given when attacking from the forest, if the enemy did not see you, then 1 star of suspicion is possible. But the ambush is quite difficult to implement. Sometimes the enemy sees you from afar. Suspicion can be dropped by handing over prisoners to prison, and completing the passage in Greenmir. But since you chose the Regional passage, you will have to run a lot around Tiltern, instead of searching for resources and trading. Quite troublesome and irrational.

Got it. It's just not worth it for equipment loot then. Besides, I probably can't handle a guard party until I am well-equipped anyways! ;)

If you play with saves, and on a low difficulty, then at least try. After all, everyone who gives advice on the forum, only states THEIR experience. Maybe you will find your own tactics. Maybe you can spam the enemy with animals - suicide bombers. On a regional playthrough, this tactic is possible. Although no, it won't work with the Guardians - they adapt to your squad. ;)

[esx9]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Hmm, that is concerning. If I just wipe 1 party and then stop, then will they still chase me?

I think you can wipe 1 guard party, it's been a while since I played around with that. I know you can kill a merchant party and get away with it. You will have to wait for your suspicion meter to go down before doing it again though. The amount of guard patrols seeking you increases dramatically as your wanted level goes up. If you become wanted then I highly recommend you get the "Run" skill from the basic knowledge, that way you can keep the situation from spiralling out of control.

Guards do have some good early game loot, but I'm not sure it's worth it to farm them, you will end up getting to fight corrupt guards from the mission board multiple times. If you do decide to farm guards or merchants then a good tip is to NOT steal things. Most of the stuff you can steal is really not worth it, save for a few recipes. If you save your suspicion meter for killing instead of stealing then you can do a lot more killing. Also stealing only grants a paltry amount of thief XP, most of the experience a thief gets is from opening locks.

[Astasia]

From what I have seen guards scale up to your level, even on region locked. They are typically a competent threat, but not overly difficult, they are basically just like going after an "average" difficulty quest target at least if you are starting off at around 0 or 1 star wanted. I started attacking them fairly early on and didn't have any issues with them compared to other fights, but I generally try to keep my wanted level under 2 stars. Attacking them just adds like 100 to your suspicion, this will bump you up a full wanted level and make things harder in general until your suspicion drops again. The crime path has tracks related to killing guards, both for killing them at low wanted levels and high wanted levels, these are some of the higher PP objectives in that category so there is some incentive to stomp a guard stack now and then.

I imagine the "reinforcements" somebody mentioned are related to fighting them at higher stars, it's not something I have encountered yet. I've only killed about a dozen stacks of them though, and all at low stars.