Battle Brothers – How to Start and Survive (Tips and Tricks)

In this guide i will try to teach you something about Battle Brothers, hopefully it will help you with the game.

Don’t forget, a big part of this game is dying and even losing. And it will happen, a lot. It’s not bad, every time you learn something new and start a new story (not every story has a happy end obviously). But i am here to save your lives or at least give you a little bit more time.

Basic Tips and Tricks

Basics

First of all, you have to chose your origin. You can read them all but for the start i advice you to choose the tutorial scenario because it will teach you how to play a little bit. If you already did it, you should take the standard company origin without any advantages or disadvantages – it is not the best one, but i think its the easiest.

You can freely choose beginner difficulty – it is still challenging and not guarantee your success. It is the best option if you want to learn stuff, you are new to the game or higher difficulties are just too hard for you.

Prepare – Hiring People

Congratulations, you started the game. Now you have to really start thinking.

You dont need many people at the start, 3-4 would be enough (the game becomes harder the more mercenaries you have). But they must be good. Dont hire the cheapest people or the only ones you find in the first village. Take people with good stats and ambitions.

You can hire cheap people and just dismiss them if they arent good enough.

But who is good? Well.. for the beginner, you should look for high melee attack and deffence, fatigue and maybe a little bit of health. Look for the stars next to these stats because they give them bonusses as they level up.

But why these stats?

  • Melee attack – obviously, higher chance to hit, you want to kill enemies and you want it before they kill you.
  • Melee deffence – you dont want to get hit, sometimes your mercenary may die because of just 1 single hit and you dont want this to happen, surely not too often.
  • Fatigue – it gives your people more “stamina”, if it runs out during battle your mercenaries cant do anything (they cant attack, move, use skills), they become useless. You dont want this. It also allows them to carry heavier and better armors which is always nice (better protection).
  • Health – its obvious, people can survive for longer.
  • Range attack – its very good, but in early game when you shooters dont have high stats they wont hit enemies, its not worth to mention untill you will be in better situation
  • Range deffence – it can be usefull, but in the early game enemies dont have really good archers and shields provide you usually enough deffence from them.
  • Resolve – its basically morale and it is important but in the early game death itself is more dangerous.
  • Initiative – unless you know more about the game, its not important, ignore this.

Prepare – Equipment

Now, you have your people, they trust in you and your leadership so dont disappoint them.

In my opinion the best option for the early game is to give everyone a shield – not the small one its not that good, a standard round shield is what they need. It boosts their melee and ranged deffence by actually a lot. Take them and have 1 or 2 more in your equipment just in case because enemies can sometimes destroy shields.

Dont forget, your people have to fight and to do that they need weapons. There are many weapons so what to choose?

  • Spear – best option for early game, its not very deadly but it gives you +20% chance to hit and you need it in early game.
  • Sword – its also good, higher overall damage but only +10% to hit, you can give them to mercenaries who have a higher melee attack.
  • Flail – doesnt give bonusses to hit but it ignores deffence that enemies get from shields so it may be good vs shielded opponents but dont forget – enemies can also use them against you. Flails are also very exhausting so give them to mercenaries with high max fatigue.

The rest isnt that good for early game, you can still take axes to destroy enemy shields, just dont take hammers too early! They are great but against armored opponents and you dont see them in the early game.

And of course your mercenaries cannot fight naked.. well, they can but its a bad idea. They need armors and helmets. Give them the best stuff you can but remmember about fatigue. Dont exceed it too much. Many people advice to leave at least 70 fatigue but from my experience 80 is better or even about 85 for characters with exhausting weapons like flails.

Prepare – Additional Stuff

It is always important to have some provisions (food) in stock, if it runs out your people get mad, weak and can leave you so you dont want this to happen.

  • Ammunition – you dont need it if you dont have shooters so ignore this for now.
  • Tools – it is used to reapir your equipment after battle, you need it, try to buy it cheap and have a maximum stockpile all the time, the best price you should look for is about 90-120 coins per 10 tools. Why you should have a full stockpile? Well, if you can buy them cheap, just do this, maybe later they will be much more expensive and you dont want to run out of them.
  • Medicine – it heals your people, rest is the same as tools but its usually a little bit more expensive so look for about 110-135 coins per 10 medicine.

And money, you need to buy supplies, you need to buy equipment, pay people etc. You dont want to run out of money completely, never. Try to have about 500, then 1000, then 2000 in stockpile just in case, you never now when bad things happen and you need to spend money.

Contracts

Your people are ready.. sort of.. but you want to finally take your first contract.

It is really good to take only delivery or caravan contracts at the beginning. Why? It is almost always free money. You usually dont have to fight but you still get paid.

  • Delivery contract – you get something and you have to give it to someone in another town, very easy, the pay isnt big, but its quick and easy
  • Caravan transport – you become a caravan and transport stuff to another city, enemies can attack you of course, but you will get some help from the rest of the caravan, in the early game it is very easy and the pay is good. Also your people dont use your provisions during the contract (you dont need food) so its another advantage.
  • Every mission with battle – there is always a risk that someone or all of your company will die so you can prepare for this by doing previously mentioned contracts and buy better stuff
  • Monster hunt contracts – they are sometimes very hard but i give you a great tip for it. You take the contract, find the monsters, come a little bit closer and let them chase you. Run away, dont start the battle just go by a road in the way to the castle or barracks, wait untill a noble house’s unit spawns, get close to them and then start a battle with monsters. Get your people at the back and let NPCs kill them for you. You completed a hard contract but you didnt have to fight, just get your reward and enjoy free money!

Battle

And it finally happenned. You have to fight.. or retreat (do this every time you think you cant win the battle or you cant take heavy losses, its not a shame, its about survival, i do this very often but win in the end).

But when you fight:

  1. Dont rush the enemies, let them come to you, they will be more fatigued and give you time to get better positions unless they have ranged weapons.. if they do, they may shoot you and wait in this situation you have to go to them. But sometimes they have archers and they still rush you, so just wait, observe and adapt.
  2. Take the high ground, when your mercenary is higher than the opponent they get bonus to hit chance and deffence so you want this and you dont want enemies to have this.
  3. Try to place your people close to each other so they can help themselves, surround enemies and dont get surrounded (higher chance to hit for every character next to the enemy).
  4. Focus one enemy at a time if possible – it is better to kill one enemy, then another then another and win than injure and almost kill 4 opponents but lose.
  5. When you won the battle and enemies try to escape, dont let them, run for them and kill them with no mercy, they wouldnt let you.
  6. Take every loot after the battle, give good stuff to your men and sell things you dont need.

Level Up

So you won your first battle and maybe a second one and your people are finally ready to level up but what should you choose?

As I said before, pick melee attack, deffence, fatigue and health – pick these, which have the highest rolls, for example:

You can take +2 melee attack, +3 melee deffence, +4 fatigue and + 4 health so you take deffence, fatigue and health but if your character really lacks melee attack and alreasy has high health, you can take melee attack – no problem, you know the best what you need

But if you get for example +3 melee attack and +3 health, take melee attack, its better.

It may depend but usually from my experience the best way is to take:

  • melee deffence / attack > fatigue / health

The skills

I will mention which skills are almost always the best for early game and beginners.

  • Student – gives 20% more exp, its okay but it gives no bonuss instantly.
  • Fast adaptation – every time you miss, you get additional chance to hit, resets after hit – its good when your people miss really often and have low melee attack, you can take it if you feel you need it
  • Collossus – gives +25% more health and lowers the risks of injuries, i almost always take it, it gives great survivability in the early game and isnt that bad late game – highly recommended.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8044 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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