Decreasing My Party Size Made the Game So Much Easier.

[Seeking Solace]

Up until yesterday, I was blindly following advice from a Reddit post that I found upon Googling about "recommended party size."
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/azdwnj/early_game_keep_party_size_small/

I realize the post is 3 years old at this point but it's still the first result that pops up and the advice I followed and that's why I'm referencing it.

Yesterday, I created a new playthrough and decided to go for a low party size approach. My experience with the game completely changed. I had three nimble level 8 brothers, and yet a 3-skull contract asked me to kill 7 thugs for 1890 crowns. Wait... What? One of my brothers can solo all the thugs with ease with little to no damage. The contracts are so incredibly easy it left me very confused. What happened to this game that used to kick my ass so hard just a day ago?

Looking up how the game calculates the party strength it's insane. One level 11 brother has the same power rating of three level 1 brothers. That's absolutely ridiculous. A level 11 brother can solo an army of level 1 brothers easily...

So the game is massively underestimating my party's strength while rewarding me just as much based on renown. It's giving me contracts it would give to seven level 1 brothers. The exact opposite was happening to me when I was following the advice on that Reddit post by "getting to 12 party size ASAP." I was running into high risk contracts frequently, and the possibility of me losing brothers was always there.

Not only that, but considering how EXP distribution works, a party of 3 brothers literally gains quadruple the EXP from kills that a party of 12 brothers get. Meaning they grow more powerful at a much faster rate.

As a consequence, while the roaming enemy parties on the map don't scale with party strength and instead scale with time, I found myself way above the difficulty curve regardless because I managed to get my three brothers to level 11 within 50 days. Back when I was following the Reddit post advice, I was constantly running away from enemies on the map because my team was filled with low level scrubs. As a consequence I had a VERY tough time with caravan quests.

The magnitude of the scaling makes all the points made in that Reddit post null. Playing with a low party size = playing the game on easy mode. Leveling few brothers up to level 11 before hiring more and doing the same sounds like the wise thing to do to exploit the contract scaling as much as possible and gain tons of money and renown with little to no effort while keeping the wages low.

I know this is very old news for the veterans here but I'm just a little salty I made the game much harder than it could've been for me for the past 150 hours of playtime. I didn't want to make this post yesterday because I didn't want to jump to conclusions but it seems that the game only keeps growing easier and easier from here. Just hired 2 Hedge Knights and some legendary gear because I had tons of money from the cheesy contracts that I'm doing and planning to babysit them until they get to level 11 before I hire more.

Any insight, advice, or comments on the matter from the more experienced veterans are very welcome! I'm still learning the game after all. Just thought this was worth posting because it completely changed my experience of the game.

[turtle225]

Smaller party sizes will tend to have easier contracts, yes.

Camps don't scale on your party size or strength at all, so if you want to tackle camps earlier then increasing party size is helpful.

There is a difficulty floor to some degree. As an example, on Expert difficulty, a day 1 "Follow the Tracks" contract will always have at minimum 7 Thugs whether you have 1, 3, or 7 bros. Retrieve artifact is always at least 4 Auxiliaries, and so on. With this in mind, running just 3 bros is going to make things harder. You can safely have about 6-7 and not notice any meaningful contract difficulty increase.

While bullying Thugs for dozens of days is safe, it doesn't lend well to quick progression of your team. Running a party of 8-9 will usually get some Raiders mixed into the mobs so that you can get some gear, but you won't likely run into Marksman for awhile still.

The way I generally go about things is I start with 6-7 and then gradually hire more bros as I have at least some gear to equip them with. I would rather have 7 bros with Gambeson than 12 bros with T-shirts.

There isn't really a right or wrong way to do things. Rushing 12 bros tends to lead to a more volatile/dangerous early game, but can let you gear up quicker as you fight more/harder enemies and camps sooner.

[Estieukua]

Don't feel bad. I'd accumulated over 1000 hours of playtime (or at least time in which the game was loaded, even if I was actually out or asleep) before I even realized that you are able to level your characters up ...

[The Duck Knight]

A little off-topic, but...this is a prime example why I often suggest: "Don't read guides, try figuring the game out yourself and find your own solutions for problems." You did exacly that and "oh what a surprise" it worked. Good job on thinking for yourself instead of blindly following what you read online.

[Ogdai_Smasz]

Very interesting but when you get to some of the end-game crises, having a large party is more or less compulsory IMHO.

Not only will you have to fight large armies with lots of backline troops, polearms and hand cannons (holy war), but you'll also have troops injured in these battles by the numbers alone. In some of the end-game quests you need to fight 2+ battles in a row with noble retinues, southerners, orcs or high-end undead, so you'll need to swap out those injured brothers or risk losing them.

No matter how good or armoured your best brothers are, three hand-cannon shots to the face or a line of spears can really fk you up!

[Beatbeat Goodbeat]

3 Manning is tough. Only a few starts are honestly viable keeping the company that small. Gladitors, obviously, and the Raiders if you get some good rolls. Hedge Knight start I usually just solo until lv 11.

It can be fun way to change up a stale play style. I've always kept a company of 5 - 7 till day 60 with nearly all brothers in the company having end game viable stats. Been playing since EA and yea, doing this 6 brother average till day 60 has always been the most viable on expert/expert.

[Seeking Solace]

Oprindeligt skrevet af turtle225:

There is a difficulty floor to some degree. As an example, on Expert difficulty, a day 1 "Follow the Tracks" contract will always have at minimum 7 Thugs whether you have 1, 3, or 7 bros. Retrieve artifact is always at least 4 Auxiliaries, and so on. With this in mind, running just 3 bros is going to make things harder. You can safely have about 6-7 and not notice any meaningful contract difficulty increase.

Yeah, I noticed that after hiring the 2 Hedge Knights the difficulty increased only slightly. Considering that my first 3 brothers were already level 11 and hedge knights above level 4 it seems that the difficulty floor doesn't start going up until a reasonably high power level value, so it's better to use 6 brothers instead of 3.

At three level 11 brothers, contracts still sent me to kill thugs. It's easier than it needs to be and isn't very efficient loot and EXP wise. I'm playing on Veteran though, so the difficulty floor might start rising at an earlier power level on Expert. Thanks a lot for the insight!

Oprindeligt skrevet af turtle225:

While bullying Thugs for dozens of days is safe, it doesn't lend well to quick progression of your team. Running a party of 8-9 will usually get some Raiders mixed into the mobs so that you can get some gear, but you won't likely run into Marksman for awhile still.

I prefer playing safe so I just buy the gear with the contract money. Also, contracts that ask for attacking a brigand camp usually have 4 lower raiders there. They are about as powerful as nomad cutthroats so they're manageable even at very low levels.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Ogdai_Smasz:

Very interesting but when you get to some of the end-game crises, having a large party is more or less compulsory IMHO.

Of course, I never argued otherwise. I think there's a misunderstanding here. My point is that building a small number of brothers to level 11 before hiring more makes the game much easier than straight up hiring 12 brothers "ASAP." Whatever the approach you take, you should be having 12 fully prepped brothers by the end game with some extra in reserve even.

Oprindeligt skrevet af SDuster:

3 Manning is tough. Only a few starts are honestly viable keeping the company that small. Gladitors, obviously, and the Raiders if you get some good rolls. Hedge Knight start I usually just solo until lv 11.

All starting companies can survive the very early game. At level 1, buy armored war dogs with the starting money. They're very cheap for what they offer. They trash thugs. They turn the 3 vs 7 battles against thugs into 6 vs 7 battles. Not only that but because you're technically using only 3 brothers, the EXP gains are massive in every battle.

Then again, yeah, there's very little point in using 3 brothers when the difficulty floor only starts going higher at around 120 power level points. 6 brothers seem to be a better approach.

Speaking of which, I'm going to stop my veteran/veteran ironman playthrough here and start playing expert/expert ironman. I will go for the 3 starting brothers approach but with the Gladiatior start. They can trash thugs from the get go and can only get more powerful at an exponential rate from there.

[Santo]

The way I approach this is to hire more people as I get enough good gear to equip them. For me that works creating a good balance between playing it safe while leveling up fast enough so it's not a slow grind.

[blackvoid]

It's not only the number that matters. looks like certain bros cause the difficulty to spike.

i never played a trader before. So a new game, beginner everything. First town I sell the starter goods and chance upon a good sword-master. So I have 3 bros now, 2 caravan hands and him.

Take a caravan escort gig. Don't remember 1 skull or 2, Ambushed by 7 brigands, 4 trash and 3 with chain mails. Barely made it alive. 10 second later rolled by orc raiding party. 2 berserkers and 4 youngs.

Game over on day 1.

[Seeking Solace]

Oprindeligt skrevet af blackvoid:

It's not only the number that matters. looks like certain bros cause the difficulty to spike.

i never played a trader before. So a new game, beginner everything. First town I sell the starter goods and chance upon a good sword-master. So I have 3 bros now, 2 caravan hands and him.

Take a caravan escort gig. Don't remember 1 skull or 2, Ambushed by 7 brigands, 4 trash and 3 with chain mails. Barely made it alive. 10 second later rolled by orc raiding party. 2 berserkers and 4 youngs.

Game over on day 1.

Caravan contracts don't scale with your company's strength, minus the possibility of a scripted battle that does. There is also no limit to the number of fights that you might encounter in a row as well as no limit to the enemy strength. For example, 3 brigand parties might group up to attack you at once. There is also a 20% chance that a random event would occur during the caravan contract (if no event cooldown is in place) that will result in you losing the contract or worse, the playthrough, if you persist to go through it unprepared.

As such, caravan contracts are potential death traps if you aren't way more powerful than the roaming enemies. I strongly advise you to avoid doing caravan contracts until you become very powerful. Like, REALLY powerful. Look at the enemies roaming your map. Can you beat them 5 times over with no injuries? If not, you risk losing the contract.

In my opinion, they aren't worth the risk unless you're legendary gear farming anyway. If you're a gambler you can always accept the contract and flee if an enemy spawns that you can't handle but then again, failing contracts in this game have big consequences.

[Crowkeeper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Estieukua:

Don't feel bad. I'd accumulated over 1000 hours of playtime (or at least time in which the game was loaded, even if I was actually out or asleep) before I even realized that you are able to level your characters up ...

There's no way that's true. You would have to be completely checked out in the head to not notice the experience bar and to not think "huh, I wonder what this is, maybe I should click it."

[Beatbeat Goodbeat]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crowkeeper:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Estieukua:

Don't feel bad. I'd accumulated over 1000 hours of playtime (or at least time in which the game was loaded, even if I was actually out or asleep) before I even realized that you are able to level your characters up ...

There's no way that's true. You would have to be completely checked out in the head to not notice the experience bar and to not think "huh, I wonder what this is, maybe I should click it."

If you can conceive it, it has been done. Do not under estimate the ability of humans of being stupid.

[Estieukua]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crowkeeper:

There's no way that's true. You would have to be completely checked out in the head to not notice the experience bar and to not think "huh, I wonder what this is, maybe I should click it."

It is true. That was way back in early access, before the experience bar said "click here to level up", when there was just an arrow symbol there. I did notice the arrow symbol and tried clicking on it many times, but nothing happened and so I just carried on playing without any upgrades of stats. That was when I'd only just started using Steam and was unaware of the message forums.

In hindsight, it was probably an unknown bug/issue related to the focus or functioning of game buttons when using a very small screen size. Years later when I was much more familiar with the game and using the forums regularly, there were other issues linked to the function of game/menu buttons at specific/unusual/small screen sizes, and I realized that something similar was probably behind what I'd seen years before.

So, you see, it all makes perfectly good sense - but never underestimate the ability of snide morons to rush to summary judgements when an opportunity seems to present itself to portray others in a negative light and thereby make themselves seem slightly less dim by comparison ...

[Seeking Solace]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Estieukua:

never underestimate the ability of snide morons to rush to summary judgements when an opportunity seems to prevent itself to portray others in a negative light and thereby make themselves seem slightly less dim by comparison ...

That sums up all of the posts that I've seen of Crowkeeper here so far and I haven't been here for long. This guy is toxic.

[Crowkeeper]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Estieukua:

but never underestimate the ability of snide morons to rush to summary judgements

Oprindeligt skrevet af -Solace-:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Estieukua:

never underestimate the ability of snide morons to rush to summary judgements when an opportunity seems to prevent itself to portray others in a negative light and thereby make themselves seem slightly less dim by comparison ...

That sums up all of the posts that I've seen of Crowkeeper here so far and I haven't been here for long. This guy is toxic.

The irony is thick, at least I didn't use insults. I figured it was an exaggeration or an odd joke on your part. My mistake, I'm much newer to the game than EA and didn't consider lower quality Icons and HUD being a potential reason. Calm down, it will all be okay.

[D#]

I just started playing again with all the dlc after a couple of years. I did the hedgeknight start.. wrecking face solo atm lol.