Really struggling

[Tom]

I really like this game but I can barely make it past my first few fights. I play new company origin, start of by hiring semi decent bros and stack them with knives and shields to farm for loot. I try to have at least 2 tanks 1 skirmisher and the rest hybrid. However after finishing my first few contracts im not sure what to do other than hire more bros and look for more contracts. Eventually I come up against an enemy that is too strong or too many for my bros and I get wiped. Ive learned the hard lesson to stay away from caravan escorts as I just get bombarded with attack after attack. I feel I need to get into battles as everything cost an arm and a leg yet loot sells for little. How can I steadily progress without constant battles against stronger enemy's. Any tips would be great like I said I really like the challenge but finding it hard to get into.

[Heron]

Take spears (+20 to hit chance) instead of knives.

A single knife in someone's backpack is enough at the start. Spare the guy with the best armor for last if it isn't too risky, then fully surround him. He'll most likely be fleeing at this point. That's when you draw your knife and start the shanking.

There's lots of good guides with a lot of helpful tips, I always recommend these two:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2549815780

https://youtu.be/qDN3hNfuqEI

[cloning_souls]

only take fights you know you can win

kite enemies into groups of allies so you have help during the battles and let those allies take the worst of the damage

wait on high ground and try to make enemy come to you

if you dont have range you can still give your melee troops bows and just switch to melee weapons once the enemy attacks

i dont recommend charging the enemy until you are good at the game

[cloning_souls]

i keep a round shield at all times and judge selling prices by what they will pay for the shield,.. 20 is average... i dont sell below that

if you keep one large town under constant bandit attacks they pay you much more for your loot

[Cat®]

Your dedication to metagaming might be hampering your combat effectiveness.

[cloning_souls]

Originally posted by Cat®:

Your dedication to metagaming might be hampering your combat effectiveness.

i agree,.. using daggers to farm loot is relying on lucky dice rolls

and relying on luck to win you battles always leads to death eventually

[BrowneHawk]

I would suggest save/reload the slur word for it is save scummer. You will learn a lot about the game from reloading certain fights. You will find out sometimes all it takes to swing a fight in your favor is changing a few weapons, or positioning a bit different.

For instance fighting ancient legionaries. Going into it with no axe men or back liners could make it a loss everytime. Add in some axes so you can break the shields, have a few 2 hander backline guys and your winning that fight now.

Far as bros go, don't be afraid to buy some crappy ones, just to put it in perspective some of those bros are cheaper than a dog. They are expendable. Don't be afraid to hire some trash bros give them a shield and let them soak some hits or deaths so your favored bros don't bite it.

[Myth Alric]

Caravan escorts are usually fairly easy and often times have no fights at all. The number of skulls(1-3) is the difficulty so you can pick easier ones, or try doing them over a shorter distance. If you want easy fights though, the easiest are the missions where you hunt down humans. Any of the 'they stole x and you need to get it back' are human fights.

I usually try to save up money and try to get some of the good brothers early on, instead of trying to max out the number of troops. Having more troops help to a degree if they are all cheap ones, they are just going to constantly be dying.

[Brucejuh]

Take the Oathtakers, you start with a 'fully geared' lvl 1 dmg-tank (high armor) and a level 3 General.
The stats are pretty nice to start with (you just need to invest a ton in fatique).

And maybe try this seed with them: WWHHLFENQU
- In the first city if found a very decent future melee fighter (wrecker) with decent stats and stars.
- Then in a delivery job to the most north city, i found "2" more future wreckers (3 stars melee, 2 stars melee defence).
- All these fighters were cheap (and just save, buy all recruits and reload to only get the good one).

Just don't grow to fast, focus on the easy/doable stuff untill your "core team" is leveled up, and use cheap brothers as "meat".

[Eye tyrant]

My advise:
- Uninstall all the DLCs and play with just the basic game. The DLCs, in particular beasts and explorations increase the difficulty way above the stated level.
- at the beginning, focus on trading as much as possible until you figure out what works for you. Do not try to get reputation with all villages. Focus on a few small one that sell resources and have armorsmiths (you can get weapons from your enemies since they are less likely to be destroyed after battles) and one trading city. Trading back and forth and doing 1 skull contracts between these few settlements will help you building up momentum.
- try dragging other factions into your fights, the easiest ones are caravans and patrols.
- do not play on permadeath until you understand how the different parts of the game work together.

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by Tommy:

I really like this game but I can barely make it past my first few fights. I play new company origin, start of by hiring semi decent bros and stack them with knives and shields to farm for loot. I try to have at least 2 tanks 1 skirmisher and the rest hybrid. However after finishing my first few contracts im not sure what to do other than hire more bros and look for more contracts. Eventually I come up against an enemy that is too strong or too many for my bros and I get wiped. Ive learned the hard lesson to stay away from caravan escorts as I just get bombarded with attack after attack. I feel I need to get into battles as everything cost an arm and a leg yet loot sells for little. How can I steadily progress without constant battles against stronger enemy's. Any tips would be great like I said I really like the challenge but finding it hard to get into.

Enemy difficulty scales with your party size, so having a giant party of abject scrubs early on is an easy way to get wiped quickly. Reroll until you get some decent starting dudes and get them to mid level with decent gear before you start expanding the party to more than 3-4.

Also caravan quests are fine, just abuse the npc caravan guards by retreating behind them so that the enemy is forced to engage them first. It doesn't matter if they die as long as the two donkeys survive.

[UnluckyNoob]

Your problem is you are bad at fighting. As soon as you'll learn how to fight better there will be no 'stronger' enemies.

[Santo]

Check this out, it's a useful guide for beginners with broad tips (rather than telling you what to do super specifically): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2549815780