In many ways, chess is sort of how battles play out, as units jockey for position behind obstacles or on elevated tiles. The brothers themselves have a bit of a weird look - sort of normal from the waist up, but below, just a round base, kind of like a chess piece. Graphically, 'Battle Brothers' is not a gem. There are many enemies in the game - brigands, orcs, goblins, wolves, goblins riding wolves, undead, witches and more. And then things went downhill, fast, as the lone berserker decapitated first one merc, then another, then another, as it shrugged off my attacks and butchered the entire squad. The young orcs were swiftly dispatched with minimal damage, leaving just the berserker. I outnumbered them more than two-to-one - what could go wrong?Д®verything seemed to go my way at first. Then, for the first time, I encountered nonhuman enemies - a roving band of orcs.

My mercenaries were leveling up, and I'd managed to fill the maximum squad size of 12. Switching to the easiest settings, I finally was able to achieve some success in the game. A fatigued unit will have to skip its turn to rest, which can be fatal. Actions such as moving and attacking cause fatigue and special abilities such as shieldwall to increase defense can take a lot. If the resolve gets too low, the AI takes over that unit (which usually makes it die, causing a chain reaction of resolve-drops and panicking). Units with a low resolve are prone to panicking in battle, and when bad things happen on the battlefield (such as being surrounded or seeing someone die), a unit's resolve drops. The fatigue and resolve stats are crucial to success. Your best units will have three stars on key stats, such as melee attack, fatigue, resolve or health. If a stat has stars, that bumps the increase. Every time a unit levels up, each attribute can be increased by a few points, but you can only pick three to raise. Every unit will come with three 'starred' attributes. You can only take 12 men to the battlefield but might have to face two dozen enemies. They can effectively double your fighting force. Find war hounds and equip everyone with them when possible. Get some beefy boys up front in the heaviest armor possible as well, and keep your squishy fellas in the back with ranged weapons.Д¤. Grab swords and spears, which have a bonus to hit chance and can punish enemies for closing in on you. Those units are very expensive but will have the higher base attributes necessary for the late game.ДЈ. Eventually, when the money flows in, you can hire premium units that already are skilled in combat, such as squires, swordsmen and retired soldiers. You're going to be hiring people who aren't good warriors at first - farmhands, beggars, thieves on the run from the law, and the like. Most of the units you recruit will be pretty poor at the start, and replaceable. A fourth variable is Ironman Mode, which makes the game save automatically and prevents save-scumming, making any failures permanent.Дў. 'Battle Brothers' has three main difficulty settings: economy (how much your crew gets paid for completing contracts), combat (self-explanatory), and starting funds. Here are some tips if you try this game out:ДЎ.

I took this game too lightly at first, choosing 'normal' for the various difficulty settings, and it felt like I barely made it out of the starting gates before my whole crew was slaughtered, time and again. What your band will most likely find, however, is death. With a handful of starting funds, you'll visit settlements, find more mercenaries to come under your banner, and seek glory and riches. A spear-and-shield user, a two-handed ax wielder and a crossbowman. Your mercenary group is small to start - three brothers.

Battle brothers save location