*Spoilers* Lerajie's OCD End Game Save

[Lerajie]

I got obsessed with The Banner Saga. almost too obsessed and have spent around 90 hours playing, in which time I've created what I would call, the "almost" perfect end game save, in preperation for The Banner Saga 2. So much time was spent creating this, I felt I wanted to share the end result.

The purpose of this save was to get as many clansman safely to Boersgard as possible. At the moment we don't know what choices if any would carry over, so everything is speculation. However be sure to complete the game on your own before using this save file.

Features of this save file are:

• Outside of Boersgard in 129 days with 6 days of food supply, arriving in 1 more day.
  
• 180 Renown to spend, 692 clansman, 87 fighters and 48 varl.
  
• Difficulty never changed from Hard. Egil is alive, Alette never fought humans or Varl.
  
• Final random event was meeting the outlaws that steal from you. +10 fighters before they can escape ;)
  
• Only Rook, Iver & Gunnulf leveled to rank 5. Everyone else with enough kills for rank 5, level whom you like.
  
• 20 kills on every character apart from Hogun and Mogun (only managed to get them to 15 kills each) Why 20 you might ask? Well the next logical step to rank 6 would be at the 20 kill mark.
  
• Every war battle was fought gaining an item at the end. No items brought using Renown.
  
• Hakon's group raised the same way, however with many more overflow kills on Hakon and +190 renown.
  
• Full item list: Alette's Bracelet, Leather Flask, Padded Undercoat, Tryggvi's Necklace, Bjarken Rune, Singing Stone, Tistelberry, Charm of the Wandering Mind, Comb of the Loom Mother, Dragon Stone, Gullinfyri, Vadrun Silver Brooch, Eyeless Rift, Farthingjörd, Puzzle box of the Twin Rivers, Scarlet Feather, Bjorulf's Blessing, Björg av Leander, Calabilla, Dundr's Hand, Five Ring Necklace, Godscale, Namejs' Ring.
  
• Remember, some of those items will arrive with Hakon's group. Also don't forget to grab the Stravhs' Whetstone from the the Godstone.
  
• No clansman ever starved, and morale never dropped to low.

Important decisions made:

• Stayed outside Frostveller.
  We fought dredge outside instead of fighting humans inside. Flavour text does state you lose alot of clansman, yet your number stays the same and you gain clansman by helping people. Regardless, this way you gain more Renown, kills and a rank 5 item without joining with Onef and Ekkill.
  
• Prince Ludin stayed with Hakon's group and didn't die.
  This may actually turn out to be a negative thing! However he was a playable character, so kept him around.
  
• Fought on Einartoft bridge until Iver forced it to be destroyed.
  Missed a battle here by not blowing up the bridge after the 2nd bridge fight, but flavour text states alot of Varl join you (even though numbers never increase) Fasolt also dies this way (highly doubt he's meant to survive)
  
• As many playable characters kept alive as possible.

FAQ:

"Why did you gather so many clansman? You could have saved more renown and leveled up more playable characters."

Very true! I could have actually gained over 700 clansman if I didn't let Oddleif train archers. It was a challenge that I've enjoyed doing.

"What achievements will this save get?"

You should try to get achievements on your own, but I understand that not everyone has the time. You'll still have to beat the final battles but You can get, Hard Difficulty, Challenge, Quartermaster, High Spirits, Innocent, Diplomat and Beat the Odds. Master Tactician can be gained if you level characters and fight in the training tent before Boersgard. I'm unsure if you can get Treasure Hunter and Warmonger, someone will have to let me know.

"How on earth did you do this?"

Alot of time, patience, loading old saves, abusing the RNG and being very careful on battles. The single most annoying thing was the war battles, aiming to get decent battles for renown and kills yet still getting an item at the end. I nearly gave up at several points. I could have spent longer on those battles, aiming to a better numbers of fighters and varl that had fallen, but that would have driven me insane.

"Are you looking forward to the Banner Saga 2?"

In many ways yes, we all want to know how the story continues. But in some ways no, I don't know if I could do this all over again, especially since I have a baby on the way. Say goodbye to free time!

"Where do I put the save file?"

C:\Users\*USERNAME*\AppData\Roaming\TheBannerSaga\Local Store\save\saga1

Theres many people on the forums that can help you if your on a different system or are having trouble. Be sure to backup your own saves! You'll never know when you'll want them.

Enjoy!

Lerajie's OCD Banner Saga Save[www.dropbox.com]

[Vehementi]

Holy moly that is awesome.

> Every war battle was fought gaining an item at the end. No items brought using Renown.

I can't even imagine how annoying that must have been.

[Aleonymous]

Hahaha! OCD, indeed :) You could have done this with a simple editing of the save games, you know, but that would have been cheating :P

Seems like a pretty optimized situation, excepting the "get to Boersgard in 120 days". You could also include a list with the available heroes; is Tryggvi in there?

And a question: So, you re-played all War battles (both waves) until you got a random item at the end?!? Sound horrific D: Did any duplicate items show up?

[Lerajie]

Yeah, no chance in hell to get to Boersgard in 120 days while still keeping morale above low and doing all the battles ^^ Tryggvi is indeed there.

Getting a duplicate item was a problem aswell, the best solution I found was to firstly RNG the war battle for decent starting locations and lots of Dredge for kills and renown, always letting Scourge summon.

After winning a battle and didn't get an item, would either rotate the playable characters, starting with a different amount or camp again before arriving at the battle. When finding the "sweet spot" you'll usually always get an item, so you just have to redo the battle until its an item you want.

[Aleonymous]

Originally posted by Lerajie:

After winning a battle and didn't get an item, would either rotate the playable characters, starting with a different amount or camp again before arriving at the battle. When finding the "sweet spot" you'll usually always get an item, so you just have to redo the battle until its an item you want.

Interesting... So, you reached the conclusion that camping at a specific location ("sweet spot") before plunging into a War, would always lead to getting an item after besting the second wave of the War?

Finally, it seems interesting how you avoided starvation in the start of chapter 4 (outside Frostvellr, crossing that frozen waste to Wyrmtoe) without access to Onef's supplies. Chapter 4 always starts with only three days of supplies; what's more, the market-place rates are exceptionally high (1:1) and their stock is limited. Maybe you relied on RNG, again, to draw a "lucky" random event, when crossing the waste, that gave you supplies?

[Lerajie]

What I meant by sweet spot was the RNG getting stuck so it always rolls you an item. The combination of when you last camped and the number of characters needed. For example... winning a battle starting with 3 characters may not get you an item, but winning that same battle when you start with 4 characters would. Just alot of trial and error.

I think I only brought around 29 supply from Frostvellr, then abused the RNG to get the berrys for morale and supply and the farmers for a heavy amount of supply, making sure it wouldn't drop me to low morale.

Also had to make sure to avoid bad events until later and cleaned out most of the supplys from the next towns.

[Aleonymous]

Originally posted by Lerajie:

What I meant by sweet spot was the RNG getting stuck so it always rolls you an item. The combination of when you last camped and the number of characters needed. For example... winning a battle starting with 3 characters may not get you an item, but winning that same battle when you start with 4 characters would. Just alot of trial and error.

That's an interesting observation. I'll have to look into the game files to figure out how that random-item/loot works...

[Shoggoth]

The way the RNG works is this:

Each 'New Game" gets a unique RNG seed.
Throughout the game each game-affecting random number comes from this Game RNG.
The RNG state is stored in each save file and restored in each load.

So, if you as the player make the same exact moves and choices, all the random numbers will be generated exactly the same way each play through. In practice, there are so many things that perturb the RNG that this is pretty difficult.

These are dozens of things that pull numbers from the RNG: War setup and results, Random Quests, Camp music, Landscape layers, battle board determination, battle spawning, battle AI, market items, etc...

[Aleonymous]

Originally posted by Faðir Lögseims:

The way the RNG works is this:
...

Intresting. The RNG entry registered in the JSON save-files is pretty huge, with about ~60 fields of integers that are several digits long! I guess you chose this course to simplify debugging.?

Does this pre-generated RNG also affect miss-chance in battles, or is that rolled at runtime? I won't ask if you used the same RNG system in Factions :)

[Skiddyscorpion]

As someone who hasn't begun to play the game yet, I would like to offer a hearty clap on the back for putting in the time on something like this. Bravo sir. Thanks for taking one for the team!

[Lerajie]

Still finding the final decisions annoying to make, so many clansman do I let some die so I can save more fighters, do I let Rook or Alette take the shot?

I'll decide those when the 2nd game is out I guess ^^

[ade]

wow, simply...WOW. thank you this is very nice.

[Lerajie]

Your welcome!

Took a while to reply, sorry ^^

[dq_177]

Hah was planning on doing something like this too, though not quite so thoroughly optimal.

At least Clansmen are supposed to be alot more mechanically useful in the next game, so that might work out well.

[Garmon Fever]

When the world turns upside down, mountains rip and monsters rise up, I'm joining your caravan.

[dq_177]

You know speaking of Boersgard what is the best way to resolve the choices there that would leave you in the strongest position for the next game?
Finding lodgings for your clansmen is a must and getting access to supplies through whichever method is availible to you depending on previous choices is important, but can you just ignore the dock working entirely and focus on fighting battles the last couple of choices to save more warriors?

Also wondering if Alette being "innocent" or not will make a difference if she is the 'player character' in the next game.
Potentially it could actually be a good thing if she's already had experience killing non-dredge with the kind of challenges she might be running into...