Advice sought (early combat, finding weak bandits)

[Jeffreyac]

Hi folks,

Well, after making the (common!) mistake of building a settlement too soon last time, I started again and decided to focus on my guys. Got a building in the Hub, and started to explore and tech up a bit. Early had some success kiting bad guys to the guards, then eventually moved to the nearby Shek city, bought a house there and started the same.

I'm just now getting to the point where my 8 guys can fight, a little, from a position of strength (say, a handful of dogs, or a half dozen starving bandits or so). Don't get me wrong - we still take LOTS of lumps, but I'm trying to remind myself that I NEED to get beat on to build toughness!

Trouble is, it's taking forever to find any targets. Initially I found a camp close to the gates which was ideal - pulled the bandits little by little to the guards, and all was well.

After that camp was wiped, though, I ran out of bad guys. Days and days wandering in the desert yields nothing - and based on the numbers of bandits in your typical group I'll still need to kite to guards, so I can't stray too far from a city.

Any advice on finding targets for early, poorly-skilled troops to level up on?

(I've considered going ahead and building my farm just outside of the Shek city, both to provide me with initial settlement stuff and to attract starving and dust bandits with the idea of kiting them to the nearby settlement, but this feels like a trap to me... ;) I do have some defenses researched, though, so maybe this is the next logical step - with the idea that I just abandon the farming post if things get too crazy...)

Thoughts?


(edit: last time what killed me was the dang HN guys, not the bandits - I sorta didn't pray for them, so they wiped the entire hub when I kited the assault force into the guards there... :) sort of ended the run for me! But maybe this time settling in Shek lands would be better for a newbie...)

[wordwaster]

Dust bandits are easy enough to find in the area east of the hub. Rebel farmers in the north eastern desert region are a good next step.

Cannibals or fogmen should be doable once you are capable of taking out a full squad of those bandits, but be careful not to go so deep in that you get overwhelmed by their numbers. Good idea to bring mercs along if you aren’t confident in your staying power

[Jeffreyac]

That's the thing, though -I've been canvassing the area east of the hub, and managed to find one camp that was just far enough away to make it tough to kite them all the way to guards (there was about 30 in the camp, three groups, so no way I could take them all. Heck, I can't take one group of 10 right now on my own....)

I did eventually kite and kill them all, and now I can't find anyone else... guess I just need to be more patient.

[Isaac1000]

I think you should go to Shem and build a walled outpost when you have a few people with above 30 turret skill. Set up four turrets on the walls in a u shape with the gate in the pocket. You will attract starving bandits and beak things you can harvest the meat from . Hivers will bring you supplies and you can farm and lvl up your fighters until they are good enough to roam outside the safety of your base.

[Raymond]

for early game, a dojo can make leveling easy. Basically you want to kidnap some thing like a bandit, lock him up and occasionally free him for a dual. Your character can level up this way without exposed to needless danger, and the bandit also scale along for future spar. I also recommend that you should only stick with maximum 5 characters early game for easy management.

[wordwaster]

Originally posted by Jeffreyac:

That's the thing, though -I've been canvassing the area east of the hub, and managed to find one camp that was just far enough away to make it tough to kite them all the way to guards (there was about 30 in the camp, three groups, so no way I could take them all. Heck, I can't take one group of 10 right now on my own....)

I did eventually kite and kill them all, and now I can't find anyone else... guess I just need to be more patient.

hiring a band of mercenaries for a couple days is WAY easier and less time consuming than kiting enemies back to cities. with mercs, you can take the fight to them instead.

[joheng]

join the thieves guild and start a fight with the guards of a certain city. (once your stats are in the 10s or 20s)
EDIT: only in UC area without slavers nearby, because their weapons shouldn't kill you in a single blow.

[Brock Lee]

Boosting your early characters stats through gear also helps (e.g., Assasins Rags, Guardless Katanas, Sandals) so try to avoid heavy armors until later when your characters can bear the burden of the debuffs and weight that come with em'. Honestly though I'd say samurai legplates are an exception to this rule unless you really like dodging.

[bunny de fluff]

Originally posted by joheng:

join the thieves guild and start a fight with the guards of a certain city. (once your stats are in the 10s or 20s)
EDIT: only in UC area without slavers nearby, because their weapons shouldn't kill you in a single blow.

Don't do this. The thieves will be wiped out no matter where you do this. You will become a permanent enemy of the town faction too.

[mr_bman]

There's an option to increase the amounts of bandits you'll encounter and how difficult they'll be. Crank it up but expect to lose limbs.

[Skakk]

Taking a prisoner for controlled fights in your building can level you up in safety (Toughness/Melee) as mentioned above. I would advise you work on athletics, then strength, then you can wear heavy armour and take more of a beating before your health runs low. This will allow you to build up your toughness quick. Then the low level bandits wont be a problem at all.

Every area has bandits/animals of different levels. Stick to area controlled by Major Factions for a while and continue building up in bought houses in towns. When you have the cash/resources and a reliable fighting force then you will be safe-ish to set up your own outpost. Then the next quest begins, finding somewhere you want to live that will give you farming fertility and access to the rest of the map.
Enjoy!

[yippeekiay]

Find an enemy rich place (as posted by people above), set down a sleeping bag for each of your guys, then wait.

If you pick the right place you can fight, heal fast, and repeat until the enemies are too easy. Then move to a more difficult area.

My guys were minding their own business on their way back to base last night, got attacked in the Bonefields by 4 Boneyard Wolves, piece of cake, but then a pack of Bonedogs came, while I was fighing those 2 MORE packs came from opposite directions, then a Beak Thing on his own decided to join. Feeling left out a Skin Spider decided he wanted some action too hehe.

Luckily I'd put down 3 sleepng bags to heal people which meant I actually surivived the onslaught despite having 3 attack slots mod on which meant the dogs were ripping into us big style ;o))

I took a screenshot after as it was an insane but cool fight. I've had dozens of Beak Things to contend with before which was tough at times but this was just mental seeing so many wolves in one place and we nearly never made it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1861513336