How big expeditions should I use?

[OakenWall]

Well im getting further into the game, I have had squads of 4 and 6 but now things get harder, should I run with something like 8, been thinking about it, but then i wont have a secondary group. How do you set up your groups?

[Greythorn]

Imo, at least on the higher difficulties, it's just not possible to run several small expeditions. They'll just get wiped out.
If you have a good watchtower in your village and a resource close to it, then a small gatherer expedition is ok, but when 3-4 skull enemies start rolling I feel the small groups just wont cut it anymore.

[Lucky Kharms]

I always just have the one expedition filled with everybody not needed at the city. Multiple expeditions just don't ever work out as well as single large ones.

At least, not unless you're over the limit of people you can use in battle; then it may be more efficient to cull down the expedition number.

[OakenWall]

ok im done with this game, second time all of a sudden my team cant move for several turns..

I am not over encumberered!!

I just get hit by 5-4 stars like 3-4 times until my team is done after.

What the fook is up with the cant move ♥♥♥♥. If i cant move then ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tell me why, I dont have to much stuff on me.

Most retarded thing ever.

[Darmondmazual]

I beleve you can not move because each combat you take decreases your movement or rather takes up an action sort of thing so so the 3-4 battles have worn your troops out for the next round and if your in an area with high movement cost you could be outright blocked for that turn. this effect can be combated by destroying lots of dens (which are what spawn the monsters normally) and regulerly takeing out waundering monsters

[rebelyn]

I am with you Khadoran, I love a good defensive game but what I have found out in Thea is that if you don' t move in aggresively early on, then boom! the difficulty seems to ramp up all the sudden and your team gets hit like you described and there is nothing you can do but re-roll a new game!

As Simzrian said you got to hit those dens and wandering monsters...the good thing is that if you hit them first and you use an alternative fight method (hunt, tactical, sneak, social) that your team does fairly well at, you can start hitting them a little bit earlier than what you think your guys are ready for. Doesn't always work, sometimes you get your butt kicked but you can usually recover from that vs. waiting for the enemy to start slamming you.

Also, I noticed that usually my teams were pretty bad at hunting situations, so I started hunting more early on during my latest play through, even though I knew I could beat the enemy mob fairly easily in fighting situations and my hunt has gotten much better (never had that problem with social challenges because I usually try and talk my way out of everything, just like IRL) but the game doesn't seem to give the social option to those dens...

[OakenWall]

Really this has to change, there is no information about loosing movement. The fact everything was going suoer great and all of a sudden you get hit by a monster and cant move your party until dead. I clicked turn over like 3-4 times and cant move, no indication why nothing. This is not acceptable and it all happend after a fight that i WON CONVINGCINGLY, think i got 1 meber to 0 rest were pretty much full hp. Then it went downhill because i just hit auto combat after that when i couldnt find a way to move.

[KhashFirestorm]

"Really this has to change, there is no information about loosing movement"

You are not losing MP when get attacked.
You could "lose" MP if you had before MP bonus and you have lost it for some reason (eg you had 10 types of food and you have now 9)

Your movement could be limited by expedition overcumbrence or completely stopped if someone lost strength (no longer can carry his/her own equipment)

You should have feedback on left bottom part of the screen about overcumbrance. Can you please send screenshot from the game?

[aardvarkpepper]

There's two different types of encumbrance. One is party encumbrance, one is villager encumbrance.

Villager encumbrance happens when a villager is carrying more than their equipment capacity weight. It can happen when you lose Bless of Strength or unequip Strength-boosting items. I think it prevents movement. If you have a group that doesn't move, open up the equipment screen and look for a villager with a red weight icon, looks like one of the weights used on pendulum scales.

Party encumbrance happens when a party is carrying more than its normal maximum carry weight (I think that's double the combined equip weight capacity of all the villagers in the party). It slows movement. If you have party encumbrance, you get an icon in the lower left of the screen. (But I don't remember that you get one for villager encumbrance, maybe you do, maybe you don't, I forget.)

If you're working with a base speed of 5, and have movement reduced by 3 because of party encumbrance, then you'll have 2 movement left. Some terrain requires 3 movement to traverse, so if you're surrounded by that sort of terrain you won't be able to move at all.

[aardvarkpepper]

Also to respond to OP, on higher difficulties it's just a scramble to finish the quests before you get swarmed by 5-skull encounters. You never really have the luxury on 300% of just sitting to gather resources, maybe a few vital ones for a few turns, but certainly not like you do on lower difficulty levels.

If you are on higher difficulty and splitting expeditions up, if you know what you're doing, probably you already finished the main quest and likely the god quest too. (Especially since those often recruit powerful new villagers.)

On lower difficulties 6 villager parties are ample to kill off 3-skull encounters, if armed (mostly with leshy hair pikes or other good quality piercing weapon) and armored (preferably with scaled leather medium armor or better). But typically you'll need to resolve such battles manually because autoresolve results don't come out too well. You can still pretty comfortably beat most 3-skull encounters on lower difficulties though with light wounds (but only really on lower difficulties). It could be anything, six gatherers, four gatherers and a warrior and a bandit, just so long as you're not using something like a starving wolf or a pineconette - the key is strong piercing with armor for backup.

[OakenWall]

Well i think what happend is a villager in the party got to heavy. Something made him loose strengh or he was buffed before he got gear. I noticed this just now it could happend.

You really have to go examine every villager to check their personal limit, I had just looked at party encoumberance at first.

I really think villagers should just drop the gear until they get back to their limit.. Not used to this kind of behaviour in games.. And iv played quite a lot of rpgs.

Anyway, I "won" with horos and was granted 2 new gods to try out. The answer to my question i think i can answer it myself now. A party of 8 with mostly warriors can tackle most things but I ended up with 10 towards the last bits before i retired. I did talk my way with the last encounter, maybe i will try fight it instead next time but seems like a good plan considering all the speech buffs i had gotten. Part from when i wanted to throw the keyboard out of the window because my party refused to move I really enjoyed this game, similar to darkest dungeon somehow but different, Great system for combat!

I played on 190 % difficulty but honestly didnt feel much harder than my first run at normal once the basic needs of food and timber was done, The party max option kinda draw up the difficulty alot without really impacting my playstyle. Not that I think the game Is easy at all, this was after all my 3rd try and often used sneak or talking at the toughest encounters.

[aardvarkpepper]

yeah maybe slow down on the ****ing next time though