Leveling Up Tips?

[Seeking Solace]

I'm on day 86 and my highest level bro is still level 9. He's been with me since the start of the run, his mates met awful deaths early on. I'm running a company with a size of 6. Playing on Expert/Expert Ironman and lost 3 bros total so far.

My plan was to limit my company size to 6 to make the contracts easy and level up faster, and then after getting all my bros to nimble, I hire high quality recruits. The plan is going fine and I've saved tens of thousands of gold for good recruits but I can't help but think that my bros level up too slowly.

While contracts are very low risk and very rewarding, I feel like the roaming enemies have scaled so harshly they're starting to be risky, so I'm always avoiding them now. It will certainly get worse from now on, and it would take a while for my new quality recruits to level up to start contributing decently in battles. I've been doing all the contracts that I come across minus hexens and, recently, escorts. (My last escort quest had me fight exactly 7 battles in a row. I lost a bro by the end of it)

Am I leveling at a good pace and overthinking it? Or am I missing something? All tips are much appreciated.

[turtle225]

Roamers and camps don't care about your party size or level, so you effectively have 6 free slots to use against those that you aren't using. You should try and build up your party more.

Since you have plenty of money you can afford to be picky about fights you take if you are worried. You can focus on low risk contracts and weaker roaming parties/camps and let your vets carry the team while your newbies level up safely in the back. Give them whatever heaviest armor you have spare, Goblin Pikes if you have them, and just let them try to get some easy xp until they level up a bit and can start holding their own too. Your high level bros should be good enough to handle easier fights even if the noobs don't contribute at all, but they can still try to contribute with some pikes or by dropping dogs.

[CHOO CHOO]

People are always overthinking Battle Brothers, is my take. Yeah you're leveling fine. When you feel weak, take easy contracts and avoid roamers. When you feel strong, take on the world and get cut back to size.

That said, if you really need to level faster and you have money to burn: Hire a Drill Sergeant, get Lessons in towns, and give the Student perk to your bros. Alchemists in the southern cities also sell experience potions.

[A5G_Reaper]

That do sounds a bit low for a 6-men company. It sounds like you're in the beginning of a downward spiral there, but it should be salvageable still. Is the first crisis started yet? Greenskin and undead crisis are gonna be complicated with their absurd number of hostile roaming armies, but it should be possible to avoid meeting too many of them if you choose your area of activity well.

It may be a bit past the best period, but massed dogs are great. They're relatively cheap force multiplier that doesnt contribute to enemy scaling, and they're way better than low level bros.

You shouldn't save that much for recruits. A few thousand for, say, sellword or militia or hunter should be your aim until you have full 12-men, then you can start hiring the hedgie boys and stuff.

Robbing caravans is a good method to spike in power after the initial raider's gear. Again, a bit past the prime time to start doing this but it's still applicable. Caravans doesnt scale much if at all so you can rob them with impunity. The rare supply caravans are good source for mid-range forge armor, billhooks, and sometimes heavy crossbow.

My run usually start with hitting only thugs, get 6-8 people with shield front and cheap polearm behind, 2 people with highest rskill with bows. The bow will force the enemies to run at you. Then proceed to tackle raiders. Slap raider gears and a dog on everyone. These should be doable within 20-30 days.

After that I'd go find a long stretch of road that connects multiple settlements of the same house. Go back and forth hitting the caravans from the north and middle house, running south to resupply, if there's wild barbarians or brigands I'd hit them too. Judge whether supply caravans are possible to attack safely or not, but I'd totally sacrifice a few fodders for billhooks and heavy crossbows and 200+ hats. The brigand camp follower helps immensely in this regard, I like to keep him around for quite some time.

Keep this until the company is decked in footman gear and at least half have hit lv7 for the nimble spike. Generally day 50-60. Now I can look to expand my recruits to full roster, no need for anyone fancy just efficient hires. Brawlers and militia and hunter and the like. Always grab hunters if they're available. Bad ones make for decent throwers. Good ones are my endgame archers and gunners.

From here on it's simply transitioning to lategame. Once I have the full roster of 12 men I'll look for recruits that could go tackle endgame contents, but it's really not too difficult. The crisis probably starts rolling now, if it's noble war or religious war it's time to rack in the cash and experience. The whole team should be lv7+ by the end of it, with either battleforged or nimble. Maybe a couple will unluckily die in the process, but the company moves on and find someone new.

After first crisis it's time for camp busting. Then arena grinding. Then second crisis. Then endgame fights, and retirement. It should be smooth sailing if the first crisis is survived without severe loss.

[Melkolf]

Recruiting Sergeant helps level up quicker, and keeps any reserve content whilst you reduce your fighting squad for quicker levelling of newer recruits. For a small company I've always found the Surgeon utterly essential to prevent the higher bros being killed off too often whilst protecting the newbies to level up.

Hate to say it but Student and Gifted can work if a newbie bro is well protected - Gifted is replaced at L11 when a bro is finally fixed and one can better decide which last perk to give him so it's not totally wasted on an early level up of basic stats. Hate doing it, but I have on occasion with the right bro.

I tend to stay at 8 bros for a long time in the early-mid game. And have found keeping a fighting group of 6 with a changeable 2 in reserve at all times helps level up the newbies. That's where the Recruiter and Surgeon really earn their fee. But I've found shifting to 12 with 8 fighters and 4 reservists is far more sustainable until the first crisis hits.

EDIT: And yeah, Training Halls are very useful, provided one picks high XP fights next in order to max their value. Have reached a 2, and even once a 3, level up on a few bros from swapping in a trained newbie at the right time for the right fight. Hard to do, but possible.

[Heron]

The most impactful tip is simple: you need to take more fights. 1 fight per day is a good benchmark to aim for.

Grow your company so you can take on the fights you're currently avoiding: roamers and camps.

[Tlewnipla]

You do not take enough fights. Easy as that. With my own progression and playstyle (about 1,5 fights a day) my whole company roster is lvl 11 on average around day 86 (that is around 16 mercenaries).
Perhaps you should not play ironman. You could take more fights and harder ones to test your limits much better when you can reload.

[Seeking Solace]

Thanks for the tips and insight, guys! Much appreciated.

[Melkolf]

Originally posted by -Solace-:

Thanks for the tips and insight, guys! Much appreciated.

Just a clarification to my earlier post - I meant Drill Sarge not Recruiting - the Recruiter is someone entirely different. Apologies.

Last couple of days I've been on some heavy painkillers and the brain is somewhat fogged at times. Think it best I absent myself from all future discussions until this latest relapse passes.

[YourLittlePogchamp]

How do you guys fight so much when it's easy to take at least one injury to a brother every fight? Sometimes I have to wait 2-3 days for several brothers to heal up.

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Originally posted by Codychan:

How do you guys fight so much when it's easy to take at least one injury to a brother every fight? Sometimes I have to wait 2-3 days for several brothers to heal up.

That's what the bench is for

[CHOO CHOO]

Aye. Backup bros are exactly the solution there. You'll also take more hits but fewer injuries as your brothers level up and acquire better armor, more HP and defensive perks like Colossus and Nimble. And some injuries aren't really all that bad and can be safely ignored.

[A5G_Reaper]

New tip: Expand to 12-man as soon as you have the raider gears for the frontline, polearms for the backline, and most importantly armored dogs for everyone. The sheer amount of attacks and encirclement from all those dogs allowed me to get away with barely any losses from fights I have no business taking on. Never seen brigand marksmen being completely worthless this early in the game. Guess I learn something new every run.

[Melkolf]

Originally posted by A5G_Reaper:

New tip: Expand to 12-man as soon as you have the raider gears for the frontline, polearms for the backline, and most importantly armored dogs for everyone. The sheer amount of attacks and encirclement from all those dogs allowed me to get away with barely any losses from fights I have no business taking on. Never seen brigand marksmen being completely worthless this early in the game. Guess I learn something new every run.

Yeah, learn at least one new thing every run. If you don't then you're not playing the game right. And, as Dylan once crooned, there's no success like failure although failure's no success at all...

However, why would anyone even think about unarmoured dogs? Having them unarmoured severely limits their use unless one likes throwing crowns away.

And if you have them on every bro, you miss out on the very useful falcon which reveals precisely where enemies are, the terrain you have and allows you to take that oft necessary retreat option on the first go. So having them on every bro other than your highest ini or Impatient (?) bro is a far better strategy.

There are also better 2 range options than only polearms on the back line - diversity wins in BB more than a mono-system for the most part. Get the combo's right and one's well away.

[A5G_Reaper]

Originally posted by Melkolf:

Yeah, learn at least one new thing every run. If you don't then you're not playing the game right. And, as Dylan once crooned, there's no success like failure although failure's no success at all...

However, why would anyone even think about unarmoured dogs? Having them unarmoured severely limits their use unless one likes throwing crowns away.

And if you have them on every bro, you miss out on the very useful falcon which reveals precisely where enemies are, the terrain you have and allows you to take that oft necessary retreat option on the first go. So having them on every bro other than your highest ini or Impatient (?) bro is a far better strategy.

There are also better 2 range options than only polearms on the back line - diversity wins in BB more than a mono-system for the most part. Get the combo's right and one's well away.

The supply of armored dog are rather limited, unless you find 2-3 kennel close by.

Personally wasn't impressed by the falcon. Never need them most fight, ends up being a dead slot. If I need to retreat I dont need to throw a falcon to decide.

In the first 20ish days polearm is way better than any backline alternative when even the best hunters have issue hitting the broad side of a barn. They can start wielding the ranged weapons after their ranged skill hit 65+.

[happynut67]

Well said brother, these diverse build with the flow runs are the most enjoyable, and surprisingly often the most successful. Better enjoy the ride and construct with what gets thrown at us rather than overtrying to meta everything. At least is how I find it the most satisfying, with plenty of perfect flaws that lead to an epic adventure. Some combinations of unique bros can indeed get much more fun and efficient than bulletproof planed buildups.
And be well Melkolf, cheering me mug your way!