Talents... at day 90

[JC Bob]

At day 90ish the Knob Gobblas mercenary company is having trouble finding good recruits. Much of my current lineup isn't quite there and need to be retired over time. But I just can't seem to catch a break in talents.

Of 11 brothers only 3 are enjoying two melee stars (one of 'em is a backline hunter). So far I've only got one with three stars. Unfortunately this is Bruce Bannerman, the bannerman monk who is sadly lacking any stars in resolve. But he's got a part time job, he's doing alright.

At every settlement I find I recruit everyone I consider somewhat promising, but I just can't get any worthwhile ones. At this point in time, how many goodish brothers does your roster usually contain? On Ironman.

[Vertibird]

Every recruit I get has 3 stars and 30-35 skill in ranged attack

[tkbb_]

If you dont reload saves to check talents on many recruits or use the tryout mod or 'cheat' in any other form this is to be expected.

But you dont necessarily need 2-3 stars in melee to end up with decent melee skill. If your brothers starts out with above average skill (i.e. 58+) and gets lucky with the level ups you might aswell get him at lvl 11 to above 80 already without any stars at all. Certain backgrounds almost always get to above 80 without anything.

Btw i did reload when recruiting quite a bit (non ironman), recently installed the mod and have zero 3 star (melee skill) characters at around day 450 but several with 1 or 2 stars. Seems super rare to me to get those 3 stars.

The same picture for archers and ranged skill.

[Coldoge]

Same problem. Recruits have low melee or stars on the wrong stats, usually on a below 40 range skill. Many with all one stars. Sad. I am willing to work with less than ideal, but the recruit pool is really bad.

[Phil85]

I was going to start a thread about this too. After the recent updates, recruits are much worse all the way around. Even hedge knights, sell swords and other high tier recruits have worse stats, with some exceptions. The hardest part of the game is finding good recruits now. That's not much fun. Save scumming is almost required for recruiting.

[suejak]

Uh, in my new run it seems like everybody has two or three stars on melee skill, melee defense, or fatigue. The coolest one was a 500c disowned noble in the 2nd town -- he has 67 melee skill on day 1!! With talents, too. This is a godsend for an EELI run and very fun.

I actually thought they made good recruits more common!

Anyway, this game is at its best (IMO) when you're forging good bros out of garbage. Anybody can scum for good bros and skate through the content :)

[Thirty-O-Six]

Min/Max has always been hard to find. Are you recruiting brawlers and other such backgrounds that tend to get higher stars? For some reason servants appear to get a lot of stars for me although even then they are usually not in Mtk. Butchers are my new favorite. Good HP, Decent starting Mtk, decent overall and can find 8/month to start.

Lately I’ve been hiring about 10 guys at the start and trashing the junk down to a good 5 or 6 bros. Then it’s just hire and fire, hire and fire, etc until I get a comfortable cushion. Usually I have at least 1/2 with starts in Mtk out of those 6.

[Primitive Dog Owner]

Recruit more cheap, reasonably efficient characters.

With some exceptions, like brawlers, beggars and butchers, stars are pure luck.

Even for them, stars = luck, but they are more likely to get lucky in MA stars, because they can't get stars in certain stats (RSK for butchers, brawlers, HP/Res for Beggars), but can get stars in MA

Getting a decent MA base is also luck, although obviously some backgrounds have different ranges than others. There are many backgrounds that can get up to 57 base MA. It's basically the norm for those who don't have a bonus or penalty to MA.

So if you want to get a bunch of guys with stars in MA and decent bases in MA, just recruit a lot of cheap characters who don't have too much of a penalty to their stats. Brawlers or 190gp butchers being obvious choices, but tons of other backgrounds having equipment combos that price them cheap enough to be worthwhile. It's a math problem, and that's how you solve it. Turn money into efficiently priced bodies with potential.

So by Day 90, you can and probably should have as many guys with decent MA as you need. They might be lacking in other stats though. It takes more than MA to make a great 2hander, after all.

When it comes to getting late game / end game quality characters with high MA, high MD, high fatigue/hp and serviceable resolve, the math problem gets more complicated.

Is it more efficient to try and get super lucky on a low cost background? Or to try and get somewhat lucky on a high cost background? That is not always clear.

But it's probably a good idea to get a decent base of cheap characters with reasonable melee skill, before worrying about how to get the perfect character.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Phil85:

I was going to start a thread about this too. After the recent updates, recruits are much worse all the way around. Even hedge knights, sell swords and other high tier recruits have worse stats, with some exceptions. The hardest part of the game is finding good recruits now. That's not much fun. Save scumming is almost required for recruiting.

You had a string of bad luck and go straight to blaming the devs when they didn't even change anything? Wow. Most of us do just fine without save scumming.

Finding good recruits is not hard. You can beat most of this game with average joe's that have 80's in offense and 20's in defense.

Finding the wonderful 90+/35+ guys is rare and difficult. But you don't need a full team of gods to even beat the legendary fights.

[Phil85]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Originally posted by Phil85:

I was going to start a thread about this too. After the recent updates, recruits are much worse all the way around. Even hedge knights, sell swords and other high tier recruits have worse stats, with some exceptions. The hardest part of the game is finding good recruits now. That's not much fun. Save scumming is almost required for recruiting.

You had a string of bad luck and go straight to blaming the devs when they didn't even change anything? Wow. Most of us do just fine without save scumming.

Finding good recruits is not hard. You can beat most of this game with average joe's that have 80's in offense and 20's in defense.

Finding the wonderful 90+/35+ guys is rare and difficult. But you don't need a full team of gods to even beat the legendary fights.

My current game is over 500 days and I've consistently had more trouble finding good recruits then in the past. Maybe it's all bad luck, but it's been my experience. I've beaten every part of the game with this team except the very end game fights.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by Phil85:

Originally posted by turtle225:

You had a string of bad luck and go straight to blaming the devs when they didn't even change anything? Wow. Most of us do just fine without save scumming.

Finding good recruits is not hard. You can beat most of this game with average joe's that have 80's in offense and 20's in defense.

Finding the wonderful 90+/35+ guys is rare and difficult. But you don't need a full team of gods to even beat the legendary fights.

My current game is over 500 days and I've consistently had more trouble finding good recruits then in the past. Maybe it's all bad luck, but it's been my experience. I've beaten every part of the game with this team except the very end game fights.

I had a run like that pre-DLC. This run I have been luckier than usual. Usually getting the talents I want in 2 or 3 hires while I've had >30 tries in the past. The unique armor/weapon landscape also seems totally different each run.

[Adam]

In my experience, finding good recruits is hard, and I think your experience is typical. To clear up some misconceptions, in the unmodded game background has no effect on number of stars in a talent. (It's simply 60% one star, 30% two, 10% three.) Also, talents are completely random except that a few backgrounds exclude certain talents. (E.g. brawlers can't get ranged attack talent[docs.google.com].)

If you're not above a bit of cheating, the Tryout Talents mod[www.nexusmods.com] lets you see talents when trying out a brother (but you can increase the tryout cost to compensate). The Weighted Talents mod[www.nexusmods.com] makes talents a bit less random (so archers are a bit more likely to have ranged talent and melee fighters are a bit more likely to have melee talent, etc). And the More Recruits mod[www.nexusmods.com] simply makes more men available in the settlements.

Personally I don't have enough free time for grinding anymore, so I use some of those.

[SwampDragon]

I play E, E, Ironman without ever save scumming, and I very rarely have perfect 3-star mercs at day 100. There simply isn't enough money available to hire&fire recruits looking for good ones. I may luck out now and then, but those chosen few also have to survive long enough to become useful... My day 100 company is therefore comprised of those that survived. If any of those survivors have 3 stars in melee and are not crippled, I count that a blessing.

Yes it does seem worse after the Beasts update, but I think it's about lowering your expectations. Ironman Battle Brothers, for me, is not really about making superhuman warbands of doom, but instead managing a group of flawed warriors. It encourages you to adapt around individual strengths and weaknesses and not go for a cookie cutter build every time.

[Phil85]

@ Wolf, I agree. I am using a flawed group with good success, but the end game battles are going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible for me.

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Wolf:

Ironman Battle Brothers, for me, is not really about making superhuman warbands of doom, but instead managing a group of flawed warriors. It encourages you to adapt around individual strengths and weaknesses and not go for a cookie cutter build every time.

This is a good point and part of what makes each playthrough interesting. If finding top tier recruits was easy then you as the player don't get to make as many interesting decisions which of course are what make the game fun.

While in the long run you will eventually find enough strong recruits to fill the roster, the beginning is about making the best of what you have. Sometimes that means running a Gifted, Backstabber, Fast Adaptation, Flail spec with 70 melee skill for awhile. But hey, he was fun until he got replaced or died.

My first run post dlc had easy access Hunters and I had a quality range squad almost literally all game. This run I found one Hunter (no stars) in 200 days and he died in the Witch Hut. I've made more use of Polearms than I normally do, but it makes this run different and interesting, so it isn't all bad.

Going back to the original topic, you don't need a super crew by day 90. Most of my money in the first 100 days is spent buying 300/300 armor sets because it doesn't matter if you recruit amazing people if they die before level 7 because all you have is Raider gear. Only the best of players are fighting the Monolith/City around day 100. I usually target them shortly after 200. You don't need that strong of people to survive the crisis.

[Adam]

I'm playing a mostly-ironman game now and fully half my early recruits - the ones that weren't total trash - needed colossus and fortified mind and gifted to get them up to basic acceptability. At day 160, I still have 3-4 of those guys around, and they don't have enough endurance to equip anything heavier than basic mail (115)... trying to replace them slowly.

@Phil True, but once you get tens of thousands of coins in the bank you can start hiring all the cheap brawlers, butchers, thieves, militiamen, etc. at every settlement looking for guys who aren't so flawed.

The chance of getting a guy with two talents that you want is about 14% (18% for brawler) and the chance of getting 2-3 stars in both of those talents is 16%. Put 'em together and it's a 2.25% chance to get a good recruit talent-wise (2.9% for brawler). So after about 60 hires you're very likely to to have found an excellent recruit or two. Of course the stat rolls matter too. The difference between a min and max roll is 2-3 stars' worth all by itself; I haven't done the math but it might actually work in your favor.

Repeat 12 times, though. Takes forever...

But Turtle is right. Part of the fun is making crap bros work. :-)