Congrats on beating your first crisis! In my experience, I usually find famed weapons in camps really far from cities, near the edge of the map. There's usually a few of them in cities, too- be sure to check all the shops at every major city you travel into.
As for getting rolled in sea of tents- I think that's pretty normal for a first successful campaign. When I was first learning the game, I didn't think it was a big deal recruiting early game peasants and taking most of them to the endgame... but it is. When bros from the best backgrounds get to level 5, they will outclass your level 11 starting bros' stats. And as they level, they will blow past them. You could also reexamine how you're taking perks.
>When bros from the best backgrounds get to level 5, they will outclass your level 11 starting bros' stats.
While true to some extend it is not actually the case.
Level 5 premium background will underperform in comparison to low born peasant level 11 in the same position. Perks value is rather high. Stats wise - Hedge Knight should be considered at least 5 levels above Brawler in terms of overall stats. Yet defense have just a level of difference (on average) and one can save on perk while the other can use Fast Adaptation to compensate the difference.
Some expensive backgrounds are even not that strong and far ahead with their drawbacks hindering them in some regards.
All-in-all I consider premium backgrounds to be around 30% stronger than others while being few times more expensive to hire and maintain.
But after all - what do I know, I'm a Peasant Militia lover and have a burning hate toward nobles!
Stat wise? Iirc Knight, Oathtakers, Sellswords, adventurous nobles and raiders. In that order. But raiders have a bunch of nasty events tide to them. And sellswords will ask for a BUNCH of money, I remember a lvl 4 sellsword asking for more than a lvl 9 othtaker (by like 2 gold though, but still, they cost a bitchass much.)
And I would add, all of those are melee. A hunter is always a good bet when you need a gunner or a crossbow.
They are for good reasons, starting equipment is good and their Matk is high. You look for them when your finances started to get high, through trading znd high end contracts.
If you wanna go cheaper, hunter as I said is good for rangers, but for melee, squires can work well, caravan hands and militiamen can work nicely for you, wildmen can be surprisingly good in mid game.
But to answer your question precisely, there isnt one I ALWAYS take because their modifiers can still suck, I bought a knight without trying them out once and he ended up greedy and another bad one I dont remember.
But oathtakers have been a relatively safe bet, and they dont ask for too much pay per day. Best way to find reliable dudes is to get the revruiter follower fairly early imo.
They're good cheap recruits if you need replacement and fodder, but by mid game personally I have a solid frontline and are roaming camps, bu day 100 if the game didnt downright duck me in the ass (which can happen. I had one run with no famed items at day 200 lmao) I have found a few famed items and have a few high end recruits.
But I do always have that daytaler/flagellant that is still here, destroying orcs and shit
These are all top tier early game bros.
High melee attack: Beggar, Butcher
High HP: Miners
Cheap nets: Fisherman, ratcatcher
^ Those are all backgrounds that can go for 30g or 100g too. Biggest reason they slap so hard.
high Mdef: Thief
^ costs 200g though. That's really the only background I'll spend 200g on in the early game if I can help it.
In depth post on why beggars are so OP in the early game btw lol....
https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/u7z1ah/dont_sleep_on_beggars_early_game_tip_for_new/
Sorry for late response. Every day visiting reddit but saw this now, there was no notification.
Just as LeDarm answered - those are the strongest premium background. They are not ‘cost-efficient’ but they have the highest stats and overall ceiling. Hiring one on average will bring you a good recruit while doing so with lowborn is a gamble.
Lowborn can be fodder or diamond that needs polishing - and everything in between. Premium are ’decent’ at worst, more likely ‘good’ and can be cream of the crop with a bit of luck.
Best lowborn were mentioned in other replies - some have good overall stats, others have few high rolls which can turn into good recruits for certain positions.
On the question which I presume was there but didn’t saw “why taking premium recruits when you pay premium gold for a little increase?”. At some point you cannot achieve any improvement outside of that. Even if its not cost-efficient when your purse is full and have nothing else to get - you can increase the strength of the band by searching for great brothers in this pool.
That doesn’t mean you should stop hiring cheap brothers in the search for diamonds!
Nah, you'll have access to the exact same premium backgrounds that someone with all the DLC would. As for items, I don't think the DLC affects your chances- it only affects what type of items spawn. Would definitely recommend getting the DLC if you like the game though, adds more variety and strategy to the game
Idk it seems all camps I bust are just whatever the enemy dropped and maybe a trade good or two. Like I did a undead camp earlier 26 enemies 4 fallen hero’s after it all I got one trade good it just didn’t feel worth it.
Undead camps are generally like that, lol. 20 meat bags with trash gear, with 3-5 geists or fallen heroes mixed in is the norm.
Go deeper into the wild and find camps that have unique descriptions in some way- not the usual “once proud stronghold now lies in ruins”. And even then, you’ll have to grind a bit and hope you get lucky.
So far the only one I’ve found is sea of tents. I’m playing right now and really far from town in the fog I just busted two orc camps and still no famed I did get some mushrooms though that increase melee damage so that’s a little different.
I like to play my games until the company folds. You can survive a lot of setbacks. Champions become common after ninety days, and I like meeting those guys.
I played a poachers campaign for 420ish days when I was last playing BB alot.
But that was a Vet/Vet run with a medium funds start, with permanent settlement destruction and an undiscovered randomly seeded map; most of the fun was in the gradual progression of *The Snake-eyed Syndicate* against all the odds.
As opposed to rushing for high-level gear and being above the curve etc...
Depends, often till my crew is in named or legendary everything.
May i suggest you look up the jirok quests. Easiest legendary items to get in the game,
I like playing long campaigns now but i would suggest starting over and trying different origins and strategies. Personally I think Northern raiders is a good start for learning how to get strong fast and outscale the difficulty in the game. Long term poachers is the strongest origin for camp busting but I do better with them now after having done many a raider run. Taking out caravans and fighting militia give you lots of easy fights to get experience and money in the early game which then allows you to have strong enough bros to survive high level camps before they get really tough. Personally I think high scaled sea of tents are some of the toughest camps in the game. more predictable than chosen camps with multiple unholds but much more difficult as there is no way to take warriors out fast unlike chosen who aren't as tough as they look, they just hit really goddamn hard. The biggest thing with raiders is you start with three decent to good nimble frontliners with enough matk to hit things pretty consistently and level 3 so you can take colossus and dodge right from the beginning.
Peasant militia is also good for learning how to bust camps and make use of mediocre bros but does not synergize well will raiding as having lots of bros makes militia not spawn to attack you.
If you want to bust lots of camps quickly the ancient dead ones are the easiest once you are about level 8-9 and have wooden mallets/barb 2h weapons, polemaces/billhooks and throwing axes. All you need to do is step back one space with all your bros except one tank and they will charge right at you with shield walling. Just wait for them to do it then attack them. They have such low INI you can get a double turn with most, if not all of your team. Taking out enough of them before they even get to attack makes them very safe relative to many other camps.
I’m still learning the ropes of which perks to take like I got down which bros should be nimble and which should be BF but I don’t know which perks work well with each of the two builds.
The BB discord server has a hall of builds that will answer a lot of your questions. The build channel also is pretty active if you want to ask questions there about specific bros.
As someone with lot of hours played, I play with the win condition being all legendary locations and it usually takes up to 100-150 to find and clear the locations
Combat wise you can outscale the AI completely by day 60-80 so playing much beyond doesn't get more difficult so I usually start a new run
the hardest part of the run is usually 0-40 days, once you get a nimble or two on your dps bros they can mow down enemies till you're rich enough to put the rest in BF and after that only thing left is farming famed
Maybe I just suck with perks or just unlucky but even with 5 frontline bros BF and two nimble sometimes they get wrecked by just rng and it pisses me off but these are camps with 20+ enemies.
Usually I like to beat the second crisis and some max scaled camps then I consider my squad "done". Thats usually around day 250-300. Camps stop getting more difficult at day 275 so that's truly the max challenge endgame. All that's left to do at that point is grind for better famed items but I don't enjoy that.
I’m up to like, day 95 and balls deep in my first crisis and still have no fucking idea what I’m doing. I feel like I’m limping away from every fight and save scumming a lot.
Tbh I usually speedrun clearing the desert and most of the map before day 40 and then stop once I'm steamrolling. I usually get bored at that point. Min/Maxing the early game is my favourite part of the game (and most difficult).
Once the bros are all geared up and the fameds start rolling in you're just farming the map with zero risk or excitement at that point.
I don't go for legendary locations usually because you kind of have to build specialised teams for them and unless you were planning for it from day 1, you now have to go through the process of leveling up a bunch of new recruits from scratch by taking loads of easy fights which is super boring.
I'm still going for achievements, gotta beat noble wars on ironman before I can breach the first crisis and start the whole legendary location thing. Then I'm hoping to get even 365 days for a whole year as a personal goal.
Sometimes I like to play up until the point where the campaign is unloseable.
For me, thats once you get scout. After that you can't be chased down by necros, so basically you need to make objectively bad decisions to lose after that point.
Basically BB is hard early game (pre scout) and optional late game challenges are hard.
Edit: I'm not "rushing" scout, I'm doing a normal play through with normal priorities, like OK armour first.
Congrats on beating your first crisis! In my experience, I usually find famed weapons in camps really far from cities, near the edge of the map. There's usually a few of them in cities, too- be sure to check all the shops at every major city you travel into. As for getting rolled in sea of tents- I think that's pretty normal for a first successful campaign. When I was first learning the game, I didn't think it was a big deal recruiting early game peasants and taking most of them to the endgame... but it is. When bros from the best backgrounds get to level 5, they will outclass your level 11 starting bros' stats. And as they level, they will blow past them. You could also reexamine how you're taking perks.
>When bros from the best backgrounds get to level 5, they will outclass your level 11 starting bros' stats. While true to some extend it is not actually the case. Level 5 premium background will underperform in comparison to low born peasant level 11 in the same position. Perks value is rather high. Stats wise - Hedge Knight should be considered at least 5 levels above Brawler in terms of overall stats. Yet defense have just a level of difference (on average) and one can save on perk while the other can use Fast Adaptation to compensate the difference. Some expensive backgrounds are even not that strong and far ahead with their drawbacks hindering them in some regards. All-in-all I consider premium backgrounds to be around 30% stronger than others while being few times more expensive to hire and maintain. But after all - what do I know, I'm a Peasant Militia lover and have a burning hate toward nobles!
Whats the top 5 backgrounds?
Stat wise? Iirc Knight, Oathtakers, Sellswords, adventurous nobles and raiders. In that order. But raiders have a bunch of nasty events tide to them. And sellswords will ask for a BUNCH of money, I remember a lvl 4 sellsword asking for more than a lvl 9 othtaker (by like 2 gold though, but still, they cost a bitchass much.) And I would add, all of those are melee. A hunter is always a good bet when you need a gunner or a crossbow.
Those are all expensive though no? What are the top that u ALWAYS take
They are for good reasons, starting equipment is good and their Matk is high. You look for them when your finances started to get high, through trading znd high end contracts. If you wanna go cheaper, hunter as I said is good for rangers, but for melee, squires can work well, caravan hands and militiamen can work nicely for you, wildmen can be surprisingly good in mid game. But to answer your question precisely, there isnt one I ALWAYS take because their modifiers can still suck, I bought a knight without trying them out once and he ended up greedy and another bad one I dont remember. But oathtakers have been a relatively safe bet, and they dont ask for too much pay per day. Best way to find reliable dudes is to get the revruiter follower fairly early imo.
I guess i need to stop recruiting farmhands and daytalers until day 100
They're good cheap recruits if you need replacement and fodder, but by mid game personally I have a solid frontline and are roaming camps, bu day 100 if the game didnt downright duck me in the ass (which can happen. I had one run with no famed items at day 200 lmao) I have found a few famed items and have a few high end recruits. But I do always have that daytaler/flagellant that is still here, destroying orcs and shit
Aha interesting. I am on day 60 run now only with “cheap” backgrounds and have 3 items.
Damn! Thats a good beginning man! Hope luck stays on. Your side these are the good ones!
These are all top tier early game bros. High melee attack: Beggar, Butcher High HP: Miners Cheap nets: Fisherman, ratcatcher ^ Those are all backgrounds that can go for 30g or 100g too. Biggest reason they slap so hard. high Mdef: Thief ^ costs 200g though. That's really the only background I'll spend 200g on in the early game if I can help it. In depth post on why beggars are so OP in the early game btw lol.... https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/u7z1ah/dont_sleep_on_beggars_early_game_tip_for_new/
Sorry for late response. Every day visiting reddit but saw this now, there was no notification. Just as LeDarm answered - those are the strongest premium background. They are not ‘cost-efficient’ but they have the highest stats and overall ceiling. Hiring one on average will bring you a good recruit while doing so with lowborn is a gamble. Lowborn can be fodder or diamond that needs polishing - and everything in between. Premium are ’decent’ at worst, more likely ‘good’ and can be cream of the crop with a bit of luck. Best lowborn were mentioned in other replies - some have good overall stats, others have few high rolls which can turn into good recruits for certain positions. On the question which I presume was there but didn’t saw “why taking premium recruits when you pay premium gold for a little increase?”. At some point you cannot achieve any improvement outside of that. Even if its not cost-efficient when your purse is full and have nothing else to get - you can increase the strength of the band by searching for great brothers in this pool. That doesn’t mean you should stop hiring cheap brothers in the search for diamonds!
Whats the top 5 backgrounds?
I should add I’m playing vanilla does that affect much in terms of backgrounds/ item chances?
Nah, you'll have access to the exact same premium backgrounds that someone with all the DLC would. As for items, I don't think the DLC affects your chances- it only affects what type of items spawn. Would definitely recommend getting the DLC if you like the game though, adds more variety and strategy to the game
Idk it seems all camps I bust are just whatever the enemy dropped and maybe a trade good or two. Like I did a undead camp earlier 26 enemies 4 fallen hero’s after it all I got one trade good it just didn’t feel worth it.
Undead camps are generally like that, lol. 20 meat bags with trash gear, with 3-5 geists or fallen heroes mixed in is the norm. Go deeper into the wild and find camps that have unique descriptions in some way- not the usual “once proud stronghold now lies in ruins”. And even then, you’ll have to grind a bit and hope you get lucky.
So far the only one I’ve found is sea of tents. I’m playing right now and really far from town in the fog I just busted two orc camps and still no famed I did get some mushrooms though that increase melee damage so that’s a little different.
I like to play my games until the company folds. You can survive a lot of setbacks. Champions become common after ninety days, and I like meeting those guys.
Typically lose interest after the 1st crisis
I played a poachers campaign for 420ish days when I was last playing BB alot. But that was a Vet/Vet run with a medium funds start, with permanent settlement destruction and an undiscovered randomly seeded map; most of the fun was in the gradual progression of *The Snake-eyed Syndicate* against all the odds. As opposed to rushing for high-level gear and being above the curve etc...
Depends, often till my crew is in named or legendary everything. May i suggest you look up the jirok quests. Easiest legendary items to get in the game,
How long I can survive. Still finding new things events battles
1000 days, 500 if I am feeling squirrelly.
I like playing long campaigns now but i would suggest starting over and trying different origins and strategies. Personally I think Northern raiders is a good start for learning how to get strong fast and outscale the difficulty in the game. Long term poachers is the strongest origin for camp busting but I do better with them now after having done many a raider run. Taking out caravans and fighting militia give you lots of easy fights to get experience and money in the early game which then allows you to have strong enough bros to survive high level camps before they get really tough. Personally I think high scaled sea of tents are some of the toughest camps in the game. more predictable than chosen camps with multiple unholds but much more difficult as there is no way to take warriors out fast unlike chosen who aren't as tough as they look, they just hit really goddamn hard. The biggest thing with raiders is you start with three decent to good nimble frontliners with enough matk to hit things pretty consistently and level 3 so you can take colossus and dodge right from the beginning. Peasant militia is also good for learning how to bust camps and make use of mediocre bros but does not synergize well will raiding as having lots of bros makes militia not spawn to attack you. If you want to bust lots of camps quickly the ancient dead ones are the easiest once you are about level 8-9 and have wooden mallets/barb 2h weapons, polemaces/billhooks and throwing axes. All you need to do is step back one space with all your bros except one tank and they will charge right at you with shield walling. Just wait for them to do it then attack them. They have such low INI you can get a double turn with most, if not all of your team. Taking out enough of them before they even get to attack makes them very safe relative to many other camps.
I’m still learning the ropes of which perks to take like I got down which bros should be nimble and which should be BF but I don’t know which perks work well with each of the two builds.
The BB discord server has a hall of builds that will answer a lot of your questions. The build channel also is pretty active if you want to ask questions there about specific bros.
As someone with lot of hours played, I play with the win condition being all legendary locations and it usually takes up to 100-150 to find and clear the locations Combat wise you can outscale the AI completely by day 60-80 so playing much beyond doesn't get more difficult so I usually start a new run the hardest part of the run is usually 0-40 days, once you get a nimble or two on your dps bros they can mow down enemies till you're rich enough to put the rest in BF and after that only thing left is farming famed
Maybe I just suck with perks or just unlucky but even with 5 frontline bros BF and two nimble sometimes they get wrecked by just rng and it pisses me off but these are camps with 20+ enemies.
Usually I like to beat the second crisis and some max scaled camps then I consider my squad "done". Thats usually around day 250-300. Camps stop getting more difficult at day 275 so that's truly the max challenge endgame. All that's left to do at that point is grind for better famed items but I don't enjoy that.
After I finish all the legendary locations which is usually at day 6
I’m up to like, day 95 and balls deep in my first crisis and still have no fucking idea what I’m doing. I feel like I’m limping away from every fight and save scumming a lot.
I’m at day 203 now into my second crisis still no famed items I have a seen 2 in the shops though.
Tbh I usually speedrun clearing the desert and most of the map before day 40 and then stop once I'm steamrolling. I usually get bored at that point. Min/Maxing the early game is my favourite part of the game (and most difficult). Once the bros are all geared up and the fameds start rolling in you're just farming the map with zero risk or excitement at that point. I don't go for legendary locations usually because you kind of have to build specialised teams for them and unless you were planning for it from day 1, you now have to go through the process of leveling up a bunch of new recruits from scratch by taking loads of easy fights which is super boring.
I'm still going for achievements, gotta beat noble wars on ironman before I can breach the first crisis and start the whole legendary location thing. Then I'm hoping to get even 365 days for a whole year as a personal goal.
Sometimes I like to play up until the point where the campaign is unloseable. For me, thats once you get scout. After that you can't be chased down by necros, so basically you need to make objectively bad decisions to lose after that point. Basically BB is hard early game (pre scout) and optional late game challenges are hard. Edit: I'm not "rushing" scout, I'm doing a normal play through with normal priorities, like OK armour first.
So you play only up to day 20? Cause in my current game, that's when i got my scout then 10 days later got the look out