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« Reply #60 on: June 30, 2014, 07:45:31 AM »

To keep you updated here is the latest dev blog progress update with a lot of new worldmap features:

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Dev Blog #17: Progress Update - Villages, Day/Night Cycle, Banners and more

While work on the tactical combat has been reduced to a minimum we are making great progress on the worldmap. As we are setting up all the basic features and functionalities we already have some stuff to show and a packed list of things to come next. Read more below!

New worldmap features in the game:

Villages

We now have a procedurally generated worldmap with a handful of villages placed on it and connected via a system of dirt roads. These villages manage two basic resources, health and wealth.

Health: This is a measure of a villages population and their condition. Health will be reduced by fighting or getting raided by enemy forces but also by recruiting milita to defend itself. Once the health is reduced to zero the village is destroyed and goes up in flames. From now on the player wont be able to rest here or perform any other actions like hiring and trading. Health regenerates slowly over time so villages will recover eventually if getting some “peace time”.

Wealth: This is a measure of a villages riches, wares and item stock. Villages want to increase their wealth by trading with other villages. To accomplish this, they use an amount of their wealth to send a caravan off to antoher village. From the ensuing trade both villages will experience a growth in wealth.

Caravans

The caravans that villages send out are already in the game and working. They use the existing roads and due to their heavy load are rather slow. Of course the lands and forests are dangerous and might be swarming with bandits that will attack and plunder the caravans. This is a constant risk the villages are facing and they might even call out to the player to help them if their caravans are constantly raided. They also will buy some additional caravan guards for protection if they have the means to do that. But these guards only offer a limited amount of protection.

If a caravan is attacked and the gurads are overwhelmed (more on worldmap combat later as the combat is not yet in the game) the attackers take all the wealth from the caravan and take it back to their base of operations.

Day and Night Cycle

Time passes in real time on the worldmap, not in turns. We now have implemented a day/night cycle to add to the atmosphere of the world. Of course the day and nighttimes also have gameplay effects.

At night all parties movement will be significantly slowed as they have more difficulty finding their way in the dark. Additionally, the sight range is greatly reduced during the night, making it more difficult to spot enemy parties, locations or spawnpoints. So the player has to be careful when moving at night not run into any ambushes.

Depending on the type of party there are creatures in the game that do not suffer from sight or movement penalties during the night. This applies to werewolves and the undead, making these enemies especially dangerous in the dark.

Disclaimer to the following pic: The green circles on the pic below show the sight range of the party, they are only visible for debugging reasons. Also, the big sun and moon are only to give a better example. Finally, the caravan icon is still a placeholder.



Raiders

Similarly to villages there are other locations that spawn parties. So far we implemented haunted crypts that spawn a variety of undead raiders. These spawnpoints also have a health and wealth resource pool that they use to spawn (buy) raiding parties.

These raiders seek out villages to attack and plunder their wealth. After a successful raid on a village they return to their spawnpoint and add whatever they plundered to the spawnpoints resource pool. This way a successful spawnpoint keeps growing its resource base that it can then use to buy even more powerful raiding parties and plunder even more resources.

As you can see there is a dynamic at work that can lead to really powerful spawnpoints and raiding parties. So leaving a spawnpoint unchecked for too long can lead to “no-go areas” that are mainly controlled by evil forces and where all villages are destroyed (mind you that village destruction is not in the game yet).

Next up on the worldmap:

The following features are close to completion and will be implemented soon in the game.

Distinct Party Banners

Each party that is travelling the worldmap will have a unique banner showing from what village, or any other spawnpoint for that matter, a party is coming. The player will be able to choose a custom banner when starting a new game.

Paul already pumped out a first set of banner graphics so you can get an impression on what to expect.



Worldmap Combat

As we wanted the possibility of two parties fighting each other on the worldmap without a player being present (and a real tactical combat) we had to come up with a simplified world map combat system that estimates the strength of a party and calculates their chances of winning and their losses in combat.

As this system is not final, we cant go into too much detail here. The combat system will account for the strength of each individual solider of a party and also takes place in turns. However, there is a delay between each round of combat to make the combat last a while and give the player the opportunity to join the fight. Once the player joins the fighting, it will continue in the tactical view just like any other fight that the player is involved in. As of now we do not have an automated combat or auto-resolve feature planned for player combat.

Destructible Villages

As mentioned above villages (and other spawnpoints) should be destroyed when their health reaches zero or below. We will implement this feature shortly.

Become a Bro and download the tactical combat demo!

If you haven't done so already head over to our “Downloads” section, get the Battle Brothers tactical combat demo and give it a try! Also make sure to let us know what you think about it and how we could improve it in our Forums.

 
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« Reply #61 on: July 08, 2014, 04:56:35 AM »

We want to give your Battle Brothers an individual background that also plays into the tactical combat. We elaborate on that in our latest dev blog:
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Dev Blog #18: Character Traits and Backgrounds


Battle Brothers is a game where attachment to the individual characters in your retinue is an essential part of the game. Today we explain how we use character backgrounds and traits to create characters that feel unique from the moment you hire them, and that you can relate and get attached to (only to see them getting horribly slaughtered by some axe-wielding skeleton).

Character Backgrounds

Each Battle Brother comes with a background trait that should give you an idea of the character’s former life, the childhood or profession before he was hired to join your warband.

A Battle Brother may have once been a noble from an established and wealthy family that ended up losing its fortune, or he may have been a simple farmer forced to take up arms and sell out his swordarm to get by after his farm was raided and burned to the ground. Perhaps he is a former soldier that fell in disgrace with his superiors and had to disappear, or a former thief that had a change of heart.

Whatever the case, these background traits come with a short procedurally generated story for flavor and an actual game play effect. Depending on the background, characters have different starting attributes and equipment. A farmer will be used to work the fields all day long and will not fatigue easily, whereas a noble may have benefitted from lessons in swordfighting at court. And whereas a farmer will have only the most basic of weaponry, a noble may bring his own sword or armor.

The characters that make up your group are a colorful, mixed bunch that will grow together into a band of brothers over the course of the game. We realize that not every one of you will care for character backstories - some are in just for the tactical battles. However, for those of you who like to have their creativity and imagination run wild when playing, we try to give you as much inspiration as possible.



Character Traits

In a recent blog article [Dev Blog #16] we talked about the perk system and how the perks help specializing your Brothers and change the way you employ them in battle. Character traits work very similar. However, they generally don’t have as much impact as perks do and can not be chosen on levelup. Instead, each Battle Brother comes with a random 0 to 2 character traits from the beginning that can be positive, negative or something inbetween. Below are some examples of what traits you can expect - keep in mind, though, that those are still heavily subject to change at this time.

Tough - This character is tough as nails, shrugging off hits and blows, and gains additional hitpoints.

Eagle-Eyed - This character can see a fly on a zombie’s nose from across the battlefield and gains increased view range.

Fearless - There are a lot of old friends to meet in the afterlife. This character is not afraid of death and has a higher maximum morale.

Dumb - Umm, what? This character isn't the brightest, and new concepts take a while to really stick with him. Experience gain is reduced.

Tiny - Being rather short of build, this character is used to getting pushed around and does less melee damage.

Clumsy - This character is as dangerous to himself as he is to his opponents. The to-hit chance for melee attacks is reduced slightly.

These traits are not designed to be fair and produce balanced characters. On the contrary, the traits are designed to add flavor to characters and elevate them from being mere clone soldiers to individuals with strengths and weaknesses exactly by being imbalanced and distributed randomly. The impact of these traits will never be prohibitingly strong, and every single character will have something to contribute to your group. However, some characters may be naturally better suited for specific roles than others, and some may be less suited for the hard life of a mercenary in general.

Imagine a Battle Brother that is both “tiny” and “clumsy” - seemingly not a good point to start out. However, these traits do not affect his ability to use a ranged weapon and this character may still end up becoming one of your best archers. As the commander of a mercenary outfit, it is your responsibility to make the best out of the men you have available. And we really want to make sure that it feels like men, not just a bunch of anonymous units. Indeed, we feel that it is situations like the cowardly and overweight Brother surviving battle after battle against all odds and ultimately saving the day by slaying the lich-king when all hope seemed lost, that contribute to an enjoyable emerging narrative and make for fun anecdotes.
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« Reply #62 on: July 08, 2014, 07:39:30 AM »

I absolutely LOVE the art style. If I wanted to learn to draw like that, what key words would you suggest using for when searching for learning resources? I guess I would describe it as kinda concept arty, slightly hand painted. Makes me think of a more detailed kingdom rush.
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« Reply #63 on: July 09, 2014, 02:52:36 AM »

Hey there,
I´m the Battle Brothers Art guy, thanks a bunch for the compliment.
The most essential ingredients for digital painting is a wacom tablet and lots of practice Smiley
I am completely self taught myself and watched a lot of tutorials to get better.
There´s plenty to find on youtube, but i am extremely fond of these three:

One Pixel Brush:
These tutorials are pretty advanced, but the guy has a lot of great insights on art and painting in general (he´s crazy though).
http://onepixelbrush.com/tutorials/

Daniel Lieske:
Awesome lighting and shading, have a look at his stuff, even though its a different style.




Feng Zhu:
And then of course there´s Feng Zhu with a million of great tutorials for free on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL

Just for good measure here´s a progress pic of one of the Battle Brother panels.
If you have any more questions feel free to just ask and check out my BB Art Corner (http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/)

Cheers!

Paul





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« Reply #64 on: July 09, 2014, 03:21:25 AM »

Thanks for the links! I've looked through your art corner and . Truth be told I am a programmer with 0 talent for art besides making some low res pixel art. I have one of the small bamboo tablets, so maybe I'll start practicing. Knowing me, I'll probably give up in a few days but it's worth a try! I would love to see a time lapse video of you drawing if you ever get round to it. Good luck with the game guys.
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« Reply #65 on: July 09, 2014, 03:44:39 AM »

Hey again,
With art it´s just like everthing else, its just practice Smiley
I´ve found an old time lapse video of me drawing some diablo3 stuff back in the day Smiley
Maybe i´ll do some more vids in the future of the battle brothers stuff. It´s actually quite fun to be honest.

Cheers!



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« Reply #66 on: July 20, 2014, 06:37:34 AM »

Its time for another developers blog entry - this time we describe some of our worldmap assets in more detail:

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Dev Blog #19: On Worldmap Locations



The strategic worldmap in Battle Brothers is filled with opportunities for adventure, battles and interaction. One of these opportunities are locations that you can explore, destroy and plunder or trade with. In this week’s developer’s blog we want to present you a couple of these locations.

On resources

Before getting into the midst of things a quick word on how locations work. Each location has its own resources that it uses to “buy” various parties with that each have their own agenda, AI, combat strength and troop composition. These parties will then venture out to perform various tasks. Most of these activities have the ultimate goal of increasing the location’s resources so that it can buy even stronger parties in the future.



Hideout

The hideout is an encampment hidden in rough terrain like dark woods or steep hills in a safe distance from the next stronghold or watchtower. The hideout usually harbors a flock of bandits or other scoundrels that use it as a base of operations to plunder trade routes or raid unprotected villages.

It will first send out several small groups of scouts that search the area for valuable targets like trade caravans or small villages that do not have a lot of defenses. Once they have observed and estimated a target they return to the hideout to inform their fellow bandits. The hideout then uses its resources to create a larger raiding party that travels out to attack the reported target. If the attack is successfull, the bandits plunder everything they can get their hands on and haul it back to the hideout, in turn increasing the hideout’s resources.

If the player, or any other faction for that matter, manages to intercept the scouts before they get back to deliver their information, the hideout won’t be able send out raiding parties as they don’t know where to send them.

If the hideout’s activities go unchecked for a while, their raiding parties will grow with their available resources and their parties become bigger and bigger until then can evenetually even threaten larger towns or watchtowers.



Watchtower

Watchtowers are used to guard the long and lonesome roads that trade caravans use to get their wares from one market to the next. As these trade caravans are easy prey for bandits and worse, the watchtowers aim to prevent any attacks on them.

These towers are usually placed along the road network and mostly close to road intersections. They use their resources to create patrols that move along the roads up to the next market and scout for bandits and their hideouts. The resources are not gathered by the tower itself, but the tower is usually supplied by the much bigger strongholds that are described below.

The patrols will of course hunt down any evil-doers that they come by but in case they are not strong enough to deal with the threat, the watchtower will be able to spawn a bigger assault party and even call in help from a stronghold that houses a lot more troops.



Stronghold (Picture still wip)

The stronghold is a big military fortress that accomodates a large amount of professional soldiers and provides security to a large region. The stronghold will create patrols of its own like a watchtower but it will also supply the much smaller watchtowers in the vicinity via supply trecks. Of course these supply trecks can be raided just like trade caravans.

What is more, the stronghold does have the means to fight bigger threats by sending out a dedicated assault party of trained footmen and knights. However, the soldiers of the stronghold are not numerous enough to guard any caravan or village at all times. So there will be many opportunities for the player to help out civilians in distress even when close to a stronghold.

As a stronghold usually has a smithy dedicated to forging and repairing all kinds of weapons and armor, the player will have the opportunity to stack up on military equipment. The amount and grade of equipment will be different for each stronghold depending on its location and resource stockpile.



Villages and Towns

We already talked a little about the human settlements in previous blog posts. These play a central role as in the strategy part of the game as you need them to hire new men, buy equipment and do much more.

These settlements create trade caravans with local goods and send them to other towns markets to generate trade revenue for both locations. Because these caravans are usually not very well guarded, bandits will try hard to ambush and plunder them.

If the bandits, or any other attacking faction, attempt to attack a settlement itself, it will hastily gather a militia troop to fend of the aggressors. However, this needs some time and if the attackers are fast enough or are seen too late, for example by attacking at night, the settlement will be completely undefended. The strength of the militia depends on the resources available.
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« Reply #67 on: July 28, 2014, 01:38:49 AM »

We spent some time on tweaking the tactical combat a little more and while doing that did a complete overhaul of the morale system. We think its way better and more accessible now - read all about it in the dev blog entry below:


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Dev Blog #20: Bravery and Morale

Morale was a major and often deciding factor in real medieval battles. Not every battle was fought to the death, and instead, tactics often revolved around crushing the morale and organization of the opposition and to scatter them as a means to win a battle. In Battle Brothers we aim to simulate morale as the important factor it is. Indeed, if you’ve played our tactical combat demo, you’ll know that we already have a morale system in place. However, it didn’t turn out all what we wanted it to be, so we decided to do a complete rework. Read all about how the new morale system works below.

Our Goals

So what do we want our morale system to be?

Most importantly, we want morale to be something that is easy to read and utilize for you, the player. Our new system therefore follows a clear pattern of there always being an action with an intuitive gravity to it, like an opponent being slain, and a following reaction in the way of morale changing. For morale to be easy to read, there should be a clear continuum of different descriptive states of morale, allowing the player to see at a glance how everyone is doing, to act in time, before any Battle Brother mentally breaks, and to understand why anyone would flee when they do.

Secondly, morale should be an important gameplay element that both the player and the AI could actively use as a means to achieve victory. To this end, some enemies will employ psychological attacks, like instilling fear and terror, to reduce a Battle Brother’s combat effectiveness and even have him flee, instead of merely attacking them physically. Likewise, the player should be able to press on the flank that has opponents with low morale in order to scatter them, and to reach and kill the opponent’s leader in order to send the opposition into disarray. Considering the morale of Battle Brothers should be equally important for the player, with veteran warriors more likely to hold the front line than recruits as losses begin to mount.

With our goals established, let’s see how it works in practice.

Bravery

The key character attribute for all morale related checks is called “bravery”, a measure for overall mental strength and how well a character can keep their confidence and calm when things turn sour. The amount of bravery can vary strongly between characters and opponents as some are more faint hearted while others won’t flinch even in the most desperate of situations - undead enemies even are immune to morale effects altogether. Many of our character backgrounds and traits also directly or indirectly affect a character’s bravery. Like most other attributes, bravery can be increased on level-up to make a character more resilient against all kinds of psychological effects, and some of the perks the player can choose will also open up new tactical options regarding morale.



Morale States

No longer is morale a large abstract number changing every turn. Instead, every character is at one of just five distinct states of morale. Characters start out with their morale at “steady” and can change their state either on failing or passing a morale check. The five morale states are as follows:

Confident (+1)

The character is confident that their side will win the engagement and he or she will survive the day, receiving a bonus to hit chance and defense.

Steady (0)

The character is prepared for battle and in a steady state of mind. This state has no effect on combat performance.

Wavering (-1)

There is something unsettling about how the combat is developing. Things are looking a little grim and the character is insecure about which side will win. This state reduces combat efficiency slightly and also gives a malus to following morale checks.

Breaking (-2)

Things are going downhill fast, the character is almost sure that the fight is lost, whether personally or as a whole, but is still hanging on. This state reduces combat efficiency significantly and makes it more likely for the character to fail the next negative check and decide to flee from battle.

Fleeing (-3)

The character decided to turn tail and run from combat to save their life. He or she can’t take any actions and will attempt to move away from all visible enemies as fast as possible. Given some distance to the nearest enemy, there is a chance each turn of rallying again by passing a morale check. If the check is passed, the character will be returned to a “wavering” morale state and can then act normal again.


Morale Checks

On certain events, all characters - Battle Brothers and enemies alike - have to pass a morale check. There are two kinds of morale checks: Positive and negative checks.

Negative checks challenge the bravery of a character in light of a psychological straining event and if not passed will set their morale state one lower. For example, witnessing an ally being cut down will trigger a negative morale check. All checks are a dice roll against a character’s bravery attribute, the difficulty depending on the severeness of the event that caused the check. Generally, the more powerful a character is and the closer he is to his allies, the more impact his death has on everyone’s morale, and therefore the higher the morale check difficulty will be in case he is killed. Another common event triggering a negative morale check is receiving heavy wounds in combat. Less determined fighters, those with a low bravery attribute, may choose to turn tail and run away, while more determined fighters will choose to stay in line.

Vice versa there are positive morale checks that, if passed, will increase the morale state of a character. These may be caused, for example, by an opponent getting slain. Again, the difficulty of the morale check depends on how powerful and how close the opponent was - a Goblin Chieftain being slain is much more likely to improve everyone’s morale than a random goblin out of a dozen more. Positive morale checks can even lead to characters feeling confident about the battle, receiving slight combat boni that represent their belief in winning the engagement and surviving the day.

 
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« Reply #68 on: July 28, 2014, 01:38:21 PM »

Just found out about this via Rock, Paper, Shortgun's latest DevLog Watch and it looks awesome! Following Smiley
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« Reply #69 on: July 28, 2014, 06:00:08 PM »

Great artwork guys Smiley
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« Reply #70 on: July 28, 2014, 10:26:06 PM »

This games looks amazing, lots of interesting ideas, lovely art and graphics.

Do you guys have any plans of bringing Battle Brothers to Kickstarter or Indiegogo, to gain some more exposure for your game?

Best of luck, I'll be following this one with great interest  Beer!
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« Reply #71 on: July 29, 2014, 12:09:00 AM »

Always great to get some positive feedback, thanks!

We are planning on doing a kickstarter but  for us in germany there are a lot of organizational and legal pitfalls. We heard that KS could be coming to germany this fall so that would help a lot!

Besides we are preparing a steam greenlight campaign and are thinking about an early access version to help us fund the final part of the development. For the greenlight we are working on a short and flashy feature-trailer so there is something for you to look forward to ; )
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« Reply #72 on: July 29, 2014, 12:50:43 AM »

This game looks great, congratulations!  Beer!

I love the art and you have some great ideas. I'll definitely give it a greenlight like and give it a backing if you get it on Kickstarter.

Best of luck! 
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« Reply #73 on: July 29, 2014, 01:40:05 AM »

Always great to get some positive feedback, thanks!

We are planning on doing a kickstarter but  for us in germany there are a lot of organizational and legal pitfalls. We heard that KS could be coming to germany this fall so that would help a lot!

Besides we are preparing a steam greenlight campaign and are thinking about an early access version to help us fund the final part of the development. For the greenlight we are working on a short and flashy feature-trailer so there is something for you to look forward to ; )

Let's hope KS comes to Europe at some point, then Smiley

Greenlight is also a good idea and early access -properly done- can be great for both the game and us eager players: I'm playing Sunless Sea on early access right now and it's amazing seeing a game take shape before your eyes, so to speak, enjoying the new content etc.

So, see you on Greenlight and beyond, looking forward to more news Smiley
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« Reply #74 on: July 30, 2014, 07:18:28 AM »

Yeah, we are really looking forward to getting on greenlight, early access and KS.

You are right, there is a lot that can go wrong with an early access version if put out too early or in a very rough and unpolished state. We will definitely take great care to put up a decent version if doing an early access so the people get some value for their coin while still seeing a lot of progress being made.
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« Reply #75 on: August 01, 2014, 02:20:07 AM »

New enemies incoming! We have some additions to the undead faction - but read all about it below:

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Dev Blog #21: Ghosts ‘n Ghouls



The undead are the first major faction we presented you out of several more that we have planned. It is also the faction featured in our tactical combat demo. Today, we’ll present you the two latest additions to our undead roster.

A major consideration when designing any opponents is to have them add some unique gameplay element so that fighting them feels distinct from any other opponents. We feel that having different challenges in combat is essential in a combat-heavy game as ours, and for this reason our newest additions of course have their own set of skills and AI behavior that should challenge the player to adapt in order to survive.

Let’s see what we’ve come up with..



Lost Souls

Just last week we’ve talked about morale and psychological warfare. This week we present you a new opponent designed around these mechanics: the Lost Soul. These creatures are the unresting souls of the long dead that haunt certain places, often a fateful part of their own tragic demise, and can occasionally be bound as servants by more powerful necromancers.

But what does make the Lost Soul different?

Incorporeal

Lost Souls are unique in that they exist in part in the physical world and in part in the world of ghosts. They constantly shift between the two, yet can find peace in neither. With their visuals we tried to capture their lore of being torn between two worlds; they constantly change in contour, one moment just a hazy mist, the other a grotesque face manifests.



Being incorporeal, Lost Souls are very hard to actually hit and damage. Many times weapons will pass right through them as they shift out of the physical world. However, since they can also never have a strong physical presence, a single attack that does strike true will end them.

Due to their pervious nature they travel easily on all kinds of environment and never receive a movement penalty from difficult terrain. Like other undead, they are also immune to all morale effects and are not bound to the limitations of stamina and fatigue.

Horrific Scream

Lost Souls can raise their unearthly voice to screech a horrifying scream, challenging the courage of all mortals. This is a mental attack against a single target who instantly has to pass a morale check, a dice roll against bravery. Upon failing the test, the target will flee in panic for at least one turn, unable to perform any action.

Neither shield nor armor are of any help against this kind of attack. Instead, having a high bravery is the best defense, as is being near allies who can defend a helplessly fleeing Battle Brother. We also have a few perks and items planned which will shine against an enemy as this. With Horrific Scream, we want Lost Souls to bring a different aspect to tactical battles - an opponent who directly attacks your Battle Brothers’ morale, and which feels distinct from physically-oriented opponents. In bigger battles, Horrific Screams can shatter your shieldwall from afar and allow other undead troops to take advantage of the confusion in your ranks.

Ghastly Touch

As Lost Souls reach out with their ghostly hands, they permeate any armor and can outright mortify the tissue they touch. This attack does not do a lot of damage on a single strike but it ignores armor altogether, reinforcing again that a very much physical concept such as armor is meaningless against an opponent for whom physical obstacles mean nothing. Armor is useless when fighting Lost Souls, and the battle is very much a mental one.



The Ghoul

Ghouls are despicable creatures that scavenge graveyards and burial sites for fresh graves where they dig out the recently deceased and feast on their corpses. This is why any band of undead is often accompanied by ghouls just like a fishing boat attracts hungry seagulls - even though ghouls are not technically undead, but living and breathing creatures that also feel pain and are susceptible to morale effects.

In combat a ghoul is neither very strong nor dangerous alone, as he has no armor, has only his claws to attack with and rather low morale. A lone ghoul isn’t even that keen on attacking your Battle Brothers. Unfortunately, ghouls almost always appear in bigger flocks. Even more unfortunate, ghouls possess the ability to feast on fresh bodies in the midst of battle, thereby quickly regenerating their health, and worse.

Let’s take a look at the ghoul’s active skills.

Claw Attack

Ghouls have long and sharp claws at their hands that they use to dig through the earth in search of food. These claws can tear grievous wounds and are often infected with all kinds of diseases. The claw attack is a quick attack that does a reasonable amount of damage but is not very well suited to cut through armor.

Gruesome Feast

The ghoul tears apart a fresh body on the battlefield and devours it, quickly healing his wounds and growing in size and strength. Devouring a body takes up a whole turn, but a ghoul is never satiated and will canibalize even the dead of his own kind. For every body a ghoul feasts on, he will continue to grow in size, strength and aggressiveness. Leaving ghouls to freely consume all the dead can quickly spiral out of control, leading them to grow to enormous sizes. Instead of fighting the cowardly scavengers they usually are, you could end up fighting hulking behemoths that look to swallow your Battle Brothers whole.

Ghouls should add another level of consideration to any battle they are a part of. Leaving your dead to charge after those retreating skeleton bowmen can mean scavenging ghouls having a feast. And you having a big problem. Small ghouls can easily be chased off, but can you afford this in the midst of battle?
« Last Edit: August 01, 2014, 03:54:32 AM by Jaysen » Logged

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« Reply #76 on: August 01, 2014, 03:08:10 PM »

Man. I am so psyched for this game. I just beat defend the hill in the demo, and really enjoyed it. Lost a lot of men, but I won.

I don't know why people have a problem with the unit art. I wasn't that confused with what kind of game it was or anything.
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« Reply #77 on: August 06, 2014, 07:22:46 AM »

Great to hear that there are more people out there that want us to make progress (except us Wink )!

The "defend the hill" is actually very tricky and i have difficulties beating it myself, so: Respect! The Scenarios are meant to pose a real challenge and you will probably lose a couple of times before winning one. Especially the vampires in the advanced combat scenario are a real pain so you have to try that one!

Also glad that you like the art style. Actually, there are a lot of reasons to why we have these "busts" and not just personal taste. If you havent seen it, here is a whole dev blog entry on the issue: Dev blog #5
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« Reply #78 on: August 07, 2014, 07:09:38 PM »

I thing you should redesign the standard bust template. The humans look like they got stuck in a portal that closed when they got half way through, and now have their arms pinned beside them. You could probably remove the arms altogether? Or shift the bust up a bit and add a little connector bit to separate the bottom of the bust from the base? Like in these examples:



Anyway, the art is gorgeous and I'm sure you'll figure out a good solution. Smiley

Edit: Some more inspiration I found


« Last Edit: August 07, 2014, 07:16:57 PM by eigenbom » Logged

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« Reply #79 on: August 12, 2014, 01:32:38 AM »

Hi Eigenbom,

we actually put a lot of thought into the design of the busts and it was a lengthy design process until we came up with the design how it is right now. During the process we also crossed the way of elevated busts but decided against them. If the bust gets too high it will cover the tile and the figures behind them making the tactical combat and the positions of the combatants very difficult to read. At the same time, we want to keep the arms because it is very important to us to show the actual armor a character is wearing.

On top of that, we have to work around really tight resource limitations and that is one of the main reasons why we have busts instead of full view characters.

We wrote a full developers blog on the issue which you really should check out: Dev Blog #5: Concept art - explaining Battle Brother's art style
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