"Optimal" Camping Setup

[Karjus]

Alright. I've been trying to figure out how to "optimally" set up a party for camping. Let's ignore the set stats for the named companions so far, and go for during Denmark, and Britian (with the two extra).

10 total in Denmark, then 12 in Britain.

You need 1 Cook, who then ends up with 1 empty slot so need something useful for that. (2 with Heavy Sleeper, but with how big your party can get I'm yet to be sold that it is a useful expenditure of points).

You need 1 Scout, who then ends up with 1 empty slot.

You need 2 Guards to swap over, with the NPC you never use taking the 2 late shifts.

You need 2 Healers. If a Healer is injured, they're unable to heal themselves, so you need someone else to cover them. However, they have nothing to do unless someone is injured.

You need a Smith, and Repair person. That could be split between two people, but unless they've got something to work on they'll not be doing anything anyway leaving them potentially 2 free shifts.

You then need at least 1 Witchcraft, to convert herbs to medicine though they may eventually have no herbs to convert.

Finally, you can have as many Hunters as you want, with people with Preserve to back them up.

- Cook/Scout would likely be perfect.
- Healing/Witchcraft works well enough. I don't think you really need multiple Witchcraft.
- Healing/Preserve also likely works great.
- If you're going Hunting, don't bother with anything else
- You *could* go for 3 Guards, with two of the Guards being split into crafting. Guard is more expensive than Preserve though so I'm umming and arring over whether you're just better off doing 2 Guards, then putting Preserve on your crafter.

That is roughly...6 so far, if you go with the 2 guards. That leaves in Denmark, 4 slots to put towards hunting and preserving.

Personally, I tend to go with a "zero downed" approach to combat but I suppose if you don't then it may be worthwhile having a 3rd Guard for backup. Thoughts? Other peoples opinions, things I've missed up?

[IgnoreSandra]

My notes on camping:
-Hunting, Scouting and Cleaning are the only camp skills that can't be performed by injured characters.
-Cleaning has a 5% chance to reduce a character's morale when they do it.
-"Perfect" hunting, scouting, and security is gained by just having five ranks in each area. There are four shifts, so you should have a total of two guards, two hunters, and two scouts.
-If you're diligent about hunting, two characters with rank 4-5 Preserve is almost essential.
-There's so much crafting junk in this game a dedicated Tinker is probably a pretty decent idea.
-Healers can't heal themselves, and higher ranked healers take less medicine to heal.
-If you're careful in fights, you can get away with only one Witch for camp purposes. Course, medicine is also pretty valuable.
-Repair doesn't come up often, but it impacts the amount of salvage you get so exactly one person should have five ranks in repair.
-Having a crafter is almost essential. Having something that crafter can do when you aren't making something, almost as essential.
-Fatigued characters have a stat penalty. Stat penalties are irrelevent in camping.

So, ideally:
1: No one in your combat party hunts, scouts, or cleans. This way these actions are never inhibited. Reducing morale = reduced resistances, so not running that risk with combat characters is a good idea as well.

2: This is complicated by it being extremely hard to justify taking skill points from combat characters in NOT gatting a crafting specialist in Ribe.

3: Put Repair and Tinker on the same person. Repair hardly comes up and Tinker is very useful all the time, so they synergize well. Morcant has ranks in Tinker, so if you're willing to wait until after Denmark for special items, you can use him. Especially effective since he has no valid combat purpose.

4: Healing and Witchcraft both have powerful bonuses to combat characters (And neither are inhibited by injury), so two of your combat characters should be healers, and at least one should be a witch.

5: The crafter you get in Ribe, which you should do, should have ranks in Preserving so they're not just sitting around eating your food and doing nothing when there's nothing to craft.

6: One of your combat characters should be a cook, and another should be a preserver.

[Karjus]

You can have multiple people hunt in a shift from what I've noted, and get gains from it all. Therefore, you can have 3x hunters going 3 out of 4 of the shifts. Very useful for bringing in a lot of meat to turn to rations to trade.

[[Wahr] Eogard]

Honestly camping is not really important. I'm basically done with insane difficulty (just waiting for a bug fix so I can finish it) and you can ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the camp skill you will still do fine.

The only important stuff is to get two healers, a random guy for crafting gear and one person each with a max out skill and it's ok.

Remember that some pre build companions can leave your hird at some point.


I finished the england campaign with 250 rations left, 175 medicines, a ♥♥♥♥ ton of Scraps like 450+ and I never had to buy anything in order to survive. Maybe this will be balanced out but if the camping is that easy in insane, don't bother doing some "optimal" camping.

it's interesting if you are someone who like to get everything perfectly but this game is not unforgivable enough to justify it in his current state in my opinion.