The start of the game is just STUPIDLY punishing...

[BlackDragon]

I know about 'Early Game Hell', but this is just ridiculous. After going through a couple of battles, several members of my crew have injuries. Only way to heal them is to make camp. Fair enough, I do so. But, I've only got ONE healer, and she needs to spend half her shifts resting, so she can only heal two of my three injured. Ah well, no biggie. Assign, assign, assign... all right, let's see the end results!

...two of my injured have been reduced from 'Moderate' to 'Minor' injury-status? So I've STILL got three injured, and presumably would need to camp TWO MORE TIMES in order to get everyone back in fighting fit?

...a random event destroyed half my rations?

...three of my four available Thralls ran away because of 'Poor security'? The only way to prevent that would've been to assigned EVERY AVAILABLE GUARD to Guard Duty EVERY LAST SHIFT! I can't upgrade anyone past level 2 'till I've accumulated 100 skill-points, and I only HAVE 3 Hirdmen with 'Guard' skill!

So basically, in order to recover from injuries, I have to camp a bunch. If I camp, I'll lose all my resources (and probably get ambushed) because I cannot possibly maintain suitably high security all the time. I'm not really seeing the 'win' option here...

Oh, and one of the injured is my only available Scout, who CANNOT scout until she's been fully healed, and whose skill is PRESUMABLY the means with which you obtain the 'Wood' resource, which is needed for literally every Homestead upgrade, but cannot be found anywhere, including IN A HUGE FOREST...

(And just for good measure, the campsite is stated to be 'High Security'. Which apparently means ♥♥♥♥-all if you don't somehow have Level 5 Guardsmen during the FIRST CHAPTER of the game, and/or dedicate your ENTIRE ARMY to standing guard in shifts.)

[Poto_Oil]

Iif you talk to the witch with dementia in your home village she'll heal you completely, for free

But I agree with you about the wood thing, it seems like you're ideally supposed to get almost all your resources by stealing them from random barrels, cupboards, and piles of garbage (without any consequences of course). The first Expeditions game didn't have this "feature" and it was more fun that way and made more sense, I have no idea why the devs added it in.

[CreamTheCheeks]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

I know about 'Early Game Hell', but this is just ridiculous. After going through a couple of battles, several members of my crew have injuries. Only way to heal them is to make camp. Fair enough, I do so. But, I've only got ONE healer, and she needs to spend half her shifts resting, so she can only heal two of my three injured. Ah well, no biggie. Assign, assign, assign... all right, let's see the end results!

...two of my injured have been reduced from 'Moderate' to 'Minor' injury-status? So I've STILL got three injured, and presumably would need to camp TWO MORE TIMES in order to get everyone back in fighting fit?

...a random event destroyed half my rations?

...three of my four available Thralls ran away because of 'Poor security'? The only way to prevent that would've been to assigned EVERY AVAILABLE GUARD to Guard Duty EVERY LAST SHIFT! I can't upgrade anyone past level 2 'till I've accumulated 100 skill-points, and I only HAVE 3 Hirdmen with 'Guard' skill!

So basically, in order to recover from injuries, I have to camp a bunch. If I camp, I'll lose all my resources (and probably get ambushed) because I cannot possibly maintain suitably high security all the time. I'm not really seeing the 'win' option here...

Oh, and one of the injured is my only available Scout, who CANNOT scout until she's been fully healed, and whose skill is PRESUMABLY the means with which you obtain the 'Wood' resource, which is needed for literally every Homestead upgrade, but cannot be found anywhere, including IN A HUGE FOREST... :UnhappyMask:

(And just for good measure, the campsite is stated to be 'High Security'. Which apparently means ♥♥♥♥-all if you don't somehow have Level 5 Guardsmen during the FIRST CHAPTER of the game, and/or dedicate your ENTIRE ARMY to standing guard in shifts.)

Some things are not that well explained at the start and if you want to know you have to explore. But heres some help that might spoil you so read at your risk.

You can heal all your hirdmens injuries for free and instantly by visiting Hulda the witch of your village and asking her to heal you or your group.

Wood is indeed a precious comodity and so are slaves. Hides come next. Herbs and Salvage are relatively easy to come by trough exploration.

For early wood, explore your entire village, erlingrs farn and forrest. You can start a farm project with what youve got. In Ribe you will be able to encounter Gunnars surviving friends. You can kill them and take their ship and chop it up for 200 wood. Loot the grave and use the money to buy wood and about 200 rations total. Trade salvage, medicine or herbs for wood later. Valuables if you need those resources.

Some of your village slaves escaped during the attack. You can regain them by finding them in he forrest near Skjern and using non attacks. I think theres 5 or 6 slaves there that you can capture.

Theres a few more times when you can make someone a slave but you'll have to use slave traders if you'll get any.

When it comes to shifts, spread them out. Have someone guard two first shifts and then someone else two last shifts. Same goes for scouting, hunting and more.

Gather up all the weapons you can and don't dissasemble them till you get a decent repairman, since they can extract more salvage by dissasembling. Doing that I never had to a single piece of salvage and was able to equip hirdmen with crucible steel weapons.

Looting will not net you building resources and other valuables. Those are building wuality crafting goods. In case if wood - good quality planks. You don't find those in forrests just because theres a lot of trees. What you'll find are crafting materials and those are pretty good if you've got a tinker. Healing salves and javelins that instantly knock out any enemy that it hits is pretty awesome.

[Nova]

You could also give the healing skill to another party member, and consider giving heavy sleeper skill to healers so you can heal more during a camp.
If you feel the game is too difficult in only some regards you can tweak the difficulty settings to your needs. You could consider tweaking the world resources and injury probability sliders.

[Bob]

I'm still early in the game, and calling it 'Early Game Hell' is very far fetched (unless you're totally new to these kind of games).
For camps, why don't you invest in utility skills? They are pretty cheap and you seem to badly need some more. I got heavy sleeper (it's a skill that allow to sleep only one shift and be fully rested) for my starting characters, and it proves pretty useful, for now.

[Sevrun]

Oddly the early game didn't give me any trouble, it's not until I get to Britain that things get ugly. I found the early game rather fun actually.

[screeg]

Where are the thralls, anyway? I remember sacrificing three of them to get something built in my village. Before that I had no idea they existed. Still don't know how many there are or how to get more.

[Jonas]

You pick up thralls during quests or story events, depending on your choices. They're a pretty scarce resource. You can also buy them from a couple of merchants, one in Ribe, one in Orkneyjar if your Power is high enough to attract her, and if you build a few levels of the marketplace in Skjern, you'll get another slave trader there.

[screeg]

And how are they represented in the interface?

[Nova]

They're a resource in the lower right resource panel.

[BlackDragon]

Yeah, looks like a bust wearing a collar. Ugh... ya know, I was HOPING to discover that slaves weren't that hard to get, so that I could easily replace those that I'd lost, but no such luck, I suppose.

Nice to know about Hulda! Like, REALLY nice to know! Would've been even nicer if there'd been ANY hint in-game about that particular function! After the introduction, I'd effectively concluded that Hulda was nothing more than a badly-senile old woman, and Røskva was the one doing the real work. Since I'd already recruited HER, I saw no reason to go back there just to listen to more confused muttering. Well, at least now I know.

To be clear, the reason I use the term 'Early-Game Hell' is that all the camping-functions clearly are geared towards a larger party. Early on, you simply do not HAVE the necessery crew OR skills to get anything done, or maintain a decent guard. I'm sure everything will turn out just fine once I've reached Ribe and hired some more crew. But that ain't gonna get me back all my rations and thralls, is it?

(And yes, you can give other utility-skills to your crewmen, but exactly which skills are needed and to what degree doesn't become clear 'till the first time you camp. Which, you might recall, is when I lost 3 thralls. But even if I HAD known, the only way to actually SOLVE it would've involved teaching EVERYONE how to stand Guard. You need 5 levels of Guard each shift, and early on you can only learn up to level 2, so that means you need 3 guards every shift, for 6 total if they're going to get a chance to rest too... or, my ENTIRE Hird.)

[CreamTheCheeks]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

Yeah, looks like a bust wearing a collar. Ugh... ya know, I was HOPING to discover that slaves weren't that hard to get, so that I could easily replace those that I'd lost, but no such luck, I suppose.

Nice to know about Hulda! Like, REALLY nice to know! Would've been even nicer if there'd been ANY hint in-game about that particular function! After the introduction, I'd effectively concluded that Hulda was nothing more than a badly-senile old woman, and Røskva was the one doing the real work. Since I'd already recruited HER, I saw no reason to go back there just to listen to more confused muttering. Well, at least now I know.

To be clear, the reason I use the term 'Early-Game Hell' is that all the camping-functions clearly are geared towards a larger party. Early on, you simply do not HAVE the necessery crew OR skills to get anything done, or maintain a decent guard. I'm sure everything will turn out just fine once I've reached Ribe and hired some more crew. But that ain't gonna get me back all my rations and thralls, is it?

(And yes, you can give other utility-skills to your crewmen, but exactly which skills are needed and to what degree doesn't become clear 'till the first time you camp. Which, you might recall, is when I lost 3 thralls. But even if I HAD known, the only way to actually SOLVE it would've involved teaching EVERYONE how to stand Guard. You need 5 levels of Guard each shift, and early on you can only learn up to level 2, so that means you need 3 guards every shift, for 6 total if they're going to get a chance to rest too... or, my ENTIRE Hird.)

If things are easy to replace then they arent valuable.

Hints were dropped my friend. She is the village healer and while she may be loosing her senses she still has her position. The game didn't explocitly tell you to go to Hulda when injured but it could have been something you as a player tried.

Most crew has some utility skills. Ketil has hunting and scouting, Asleift and Gunnar have guarding etc.. deceloping those further is a safe bet

I'm sad this game brings up your pressure up

[BlackDragon]

Yeah, I get the Utility-skills, and I HAVE been developing them, and for the most part, that's fine! Hunting, preserving, cooking, whatever, it's all good - they all help a little, and once I've got more men and more skillpoints, I'll be getting more out of them. The problem is that the game explicitly expects you to have 5 levels of Guard available for each shift, at a time when you almost literally cannot possibly have that (like I said, it would require you to teach Guard-skill to every last member of your hird, and do nothing but Guard and Sleep for the entire camp) - and then punishes you ruthlessly for your failure to do so. That is simply, undeniably, poor game-design.

If the system had been thought through, less Guarding would be required while you're still in Denmark, on familiar ground - nicely compensating for your shortage of Hirdmen during that stage of the game, and contributing to the difficulty-curve RISING once you reach Brittain.

I do like this game, y'know, in principle. >_> Ancient Denmark is well-made, and I can't help but love anything involving vikings. I just keep stumbling over so many minor, but crippling flaws.

[Nova]

The formula for guarding and hunting takes into account your party size, so when you're less people, you need less expertise to be successful. Basically, when the party is small each rank of guarding and hunting counts for more. When your hird grows, you need more expertise for your guarding and hunting.

[燕然干青水蜜桃]

your technique is to be advance,I play with all insane difficulty and I have played about 15 battle now,all of the 15 battle with out injured,of course it makes me to sl.This game is not battle start-some of your charaters fallen-batttle won.If you always get injured in battle,that means you failed the game,failed the way of this game.You need to think,find the way that can win the battle at the same time you wont lose too many characters.You need to put you intellect to understanding the element of the batttle field
,the every skill of different occupation of your men,undersrtand so you can combine your men's skills to won with out injured.You need tactic,that's the point

[BlackDragon]

Originally posted by Nova:

The formula for guarding and hunting takes into account your party size, so when you're less people, you need less expertise to be successful. Basically, when the party is small each rank of guarding and hunting counts for more. When your hird grows, you need more expertise for your guarding and hunting.

Huh. So, then why did I lose 75% of my Thralls to 'lack of guards' the first time I camped? I had everyone CAPABLE of standing guard doing just that.

As for you, mister string-of-numbers... why don't you tell me your brilliant strategy for defeating the ambush in 'One Last Drink' without injuries? I'm curious!