Turn-Based Tactics Warbanners - turn-based tactics from the developers of Drums of War

[Galdred]

rado907, many thanks!
I hope you left feedback on the Steam ?
What would you do with the catapult? Just removed? Any idea?

I still want to add a ballista, but I did not invent an interesting mechanics.

Now I'm very busy, so I can not respond promptly and in detail...

I haven't got the game yet, but from the way stats worked in Drums of war, you could just make an evasion check to reduce or nullify damage. That way, there would be some way around it.

 

[rado907]

rado907, many thanks!
I hope you left feedback on the Steam ?
What would you do with the catapult? Just removed? Any idea?

I still want to add a ballista, but I did not invent an interesting mechanics.

Now I'm very busy, so I can not respond promptly and in detail...

Yep, left a review plus some comments on Steam.
The catapult maybe I'd make it always hit the right hex and nerf its damage and make it respect armor and/or evasion. And make catapults invulnerable to other catapults. Which would basically turn the catapult into a stronger archer; not very interesting as you say.
Or I'd just leave the catapult, it's not a big deal, people can save-scum a bit, a touch of metagaming doesn't hurt.

Wish you & your team the best of luck in your future endeavors.

 

[thesheeep]

I really dislike games that constantly throw shit at you like hit chances that VERY rarely rise higher than 50%. Really, who likes to watch combat where all of your units just constantly miss?

I'm playing on hard and so far I have reloaded every encounter like 20+ times because the RNG simply doesn't... work.
It is way more ridiculous than in XCOM. So bizarre was it that I have started making a list and so far 50% hit chances have been 4x more likely (!!!!) to miss than hit (for me of course, the enemy hits just statistically correct).
I am ignoring every single stat other than accuracy. That cannot be a good idea, but this constant missing is frustrating beyond belief.

Now, I know you can increase your chances by moving around.
Well, good luck maintaining a shield wall when you try to get behind your enemies. It simply doesn't work.
And the chances to actually move BEHIND your enemy are basically 0 for anyone not ignoring ZOCs. And those that do, like Dancers, do like 1 damage (and bleeding, but that is just a small trickle).

Plus, I always reload when I lose someone. It just isn't acceptable for me to lose soldiers on a mission, be it XCOM or other similar games.
Perfectionist problem, I know, but that's just the way it is.
Which would be fine if you could at least save during missions. You can't, and so I am playing missions 20+ times in order to get through without RNG completely raping me.
Again, yes, you can ressurect units. But they get a stat loss so what you get is worse than just buying a new unit - no thanks.

The only game where I was fine with units dying was Battle Brothers (and to an extent XCOM), because replacements are cheap as hell and you can have a comeback after severe losses by building up again.
Here, they aren't cheap and as far as I can see, the game has only linear missions so there's no room for a comeback after losses.

Honestly, all it would take is to increase base hit chance to 80% or so and enable saving during mission.

In addition to all of that, the game is in dire need of an UNDO button. I've lost count of how often I took an action I had no desire to do just because the game doesn't let you select a new unit while another one still takes its action. This usually leads to a unit of mine moving to another unit of mine, wasting its turn, or attacking an enemy by accident because I just wanted to click on it to see its stats.
ARGH!
At the very least, an action should need to be confirmed to avoid that (again, make an option toggle if that disturbs some people).

... note how the ability to save during combat would alleviate almost all problems the game has. And you can still have some kind of iron man mode which doesn't allow that for the extreme masochists among the players.

I really want to like this game, but currently it is merely an excercise in frustration for all the wrong reasons.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Kinda agree with the sheep, it is very hard, but frequently in a frustrating, non-good way.

Could probably be solved with a mechanism for units to get defeated but not outright killed, perhaps something like DnD has, where a character with -5 hitpoints is disabled and dying, but can be saved(or finished off by the enemy).
Also, shouldn't there be a way to have more units than you can take on a mission so you can rotate them around and change your lineup to suit the mission?

 

[Trash Player]

I really dislike games that constantly throw shit at you like hit chances that VERY rarely rise higher than 50%. Really, who likes to watch combat where all of your units just constantly miss?

I'm playing on hard and so far I have reloaded every encounter like 20+ times because the RNG simply doesn't... work.
It is way more ridiculous than in XCOM. So bizarre was it that I have started making a list and so far 50% hit chances have been 4x more likely (!!!!) to miss than hit (for me of course, the enemy hits just statistically correct).
I am ignoring every single stat other than accuracy. That cannot be a good idea, but this constant missing is frustrating beyond belief.

Now, I know you can increase your chances by moving around.
Well, good luck maintaining a shield wall when you try to get behind your enemies. It simply doesn't work.
And the chances to actually move BEHIND your enemy are basically 0 for anyone not ignoring ZOCs. And those that do, like Dancers, do like 1 damage (and bleeding, but that is just a small trickle).

Plus, I always reload when I lose someone. It just isn't acceptable for me to lose soldiers on a mission, be it XCOM or other similar games.
Perfectionist problem, I know, but that's just the way it is.
Which would be fine if you could at least save during missions. You can't, and so I am playing missions 20+ times in order to get through without RNG completely raping me.
Again, yes, you can ressurect units. But they get a stat loss so what you get is worse than just buying a new unit - no thanks.

The only game where I was fine with units dying was Battle Brothers (and to an extent XCOM), because replacements are cheap as hell and you can have a comeback after severe losses by building up again.
Here, they aren't cheap and as far as I can see, the game has only linear missions so there's no room for a comeback after losses.

Honestly, all it would take is to increase base hit chance to 80% or so and enable saving during mission.

In addition to all of that, the game is in dire need of an UNDO button. I've lost count of how often I took an action I had no desire to do just because the game doesn't let you select a new unit while another one still takes its action. This usually leads to a unit of mine moving to another unit of mine, wasting its turn, or attacking an enemy by accident because I just wanted to click on it to see its stats.
ARGH!
At the very least, an action should need to be confirmed to avoid that (again, make an option toggle if that disturbs some people).

... note how the ability to save during combat would alleviate almost all problems the game has. And you can still have some kind of iron man mode which doesn't allow that for the extreme masochists among the players.

I really want to like this game, but currently it is merely an excercise in frustration for all the wrong reasons.

Turn down the difficulty? Missions are rarely timed, so take your time playing the attrition game:

1. Roderick has 3 armour plus swordsman stats, with the regen belt, he can take lots of small cuts.
2. It is better not to attack with your frontliners to avoid tiredness if that flank is outnumbered.
3. Take advantage of force multipliers, like buffs, potions ,and terrains.
4. Maneuver to recoup for stamina and mana.
5. All troops are relatively resilient for the genre. Your backline units can be roadblocks if they are in no threat of getting one-shot.
6. Worst case, except not: Vet troops level slowly if they overleveled. New troops level quickly fighting enemies in later missions. There is an assistant that double xp for green troops. Replacements do catch up and are at worst 3 lvs behind, relevant but not end of the world.

I can give you hints if you tell me which missions you are having problems. The game is getting easier with patches already.

tl;dr below

Fun fact: Bumping up the base to-hit rate will make frontliners worse and turn the game into a shooting gallery. Drums of War has a similar problem with 10% gradient.

I am amazed, likely Vlad too, how even vet strategy players are having difficulty problems with the game. My guess is most of them don't appreciate attrition plays in a ruleset where the human players and AI compete in a relatively fair manner.
Commonly for the genre, Players are handed power bumps or tools that are at best underutilized by the AI. Here the ruleset is simple enough for the AI to grasp in a sufficient level and the player is not handed an easy way out. I do think this sort of minimalism is brilliant in a special way, and appreciate it even if the execution can be improved.
Another point is the initiate/alpha-strike conundrum in a turn based system, it is often a way too overwhelming advantage. It can be brilliant in a PvP game, with all the metagaming and counter plays. For a single player game, the same metagaming is somewhat awkward, akin to getting away with stealing from a senile elderly. Here the troops can survive an alpha easily, counter plays are readily available for both sides. I have to admit again the execution do leave more to be desired, what with players questioning the use of the resident unit primed for this role.

 

[thesheeep]

Turn down the difficulty? Missions are rarely timed, so take your time playing the attrition game:

1. Roderick has 3 armour plus swordsman stats, with the regen belt, he can take lots of small cuts.
2. It is better not to attack with your frontliners to avoid tiredness if that flank is outnumbered.
3. Take advantage of force multipliers, like buffs, potions ,and terrains.
4. Maneuver to recoup for stamina and mana.
5. All troops are relatively resilient for the genre. Your backline units can be roadblocks if they are in no threat of getting one-shot.
6. Worst case, except not: Vet troops level slowly if they overleveled. New troops level quickly fighting enemies in later missions. There is an assistant that double xp for green troops. Replacements do catch up and are at worst 3 lvs behind, relevant but not end of the world.

I can give you hints if you tell me which missions you are having problems. The game is getting easier with patches already.

Thanks for those, but I did know all of them already. My gripe is not with the game's difficulty. It is with watching every unit constantly miss and the fact that you cannot save during a mission, making every RNG fuckup to your detriment only leading to far more reloads than is bearable to me.

It isn't that I couldn't win missions, I sometimes reload after winning them because I figure playing them through even with losses increases my knowledge more than reloading the second I lose someone.

In fact, I did turn down the difficulty for a mission just to try if it makes a difference. It doesn't. I mean, there are a few less enemies, but nothing major. And I gather you get 20% less gold as a reward on hard. Seems like something to make a difference in the long run, mostly.

My gripes are really with the underlying mechanics here, not mission balancing.
As I said, frustrating for all the wrong reasons.
And of course stuff like frequent misclicks, no undo, etc.

Fun fact: Bumping up the base to-hit rate will make frontliners worse and turn the game into a shooting gallery. Drums of War has a similar problem with 10% gradient.

I disagree. Currently, units last very long already. At least frontliners - and except against stuff like trolls, obviously. Increasing the hit rate would make them last less long, sure. But so would your enemy, so I don't see any problem.
And units like healers die instantly already the moment they get into any kind of ranged attack range. They are focused on extremely - so increasing the hit rate wouldn't really change anything here, either.
The only real effect would be as I said: you have to watch less misses, making the game much less frustrating. Missions would probably also be shorter, which I think would be a small bonus, too.

 

[Vlad_Konung]

I yesterday specially passed 2 missions (1st and 11th), writing out ALL the results of attacks (from 10 to 90%). Again I confirm - the random works correctly. If at some percent there are statistically incorrect data, they are compensated elsewhere. And as a whole, I did not have any claims to the rand.

If you think the battles are too long and boring - at any time you can include an option that reduces all health by 30%. Replace misses with hits with damage 1 can not, because many attacks in the case of imposes negative effects (bleeding, curse, poisoning, etc.). Even misses rob 1 Stamina from an enemy.

I will make it possible to edit all the characteristics of units, including active and passive skills. You can all raise the Accuracy to the values that satisfy you.

 

[Trash Player]

Fun fact: Bumping up the base to-hit rate will make frontliners worse and turn the game into a shooting gallery. Drums of War has a similar problem with 10% gradient.

I disagree. Currently, units last very long already. At least frontliners - and except against stuff like trolls, obviously. Increasing the hit rate would make them last less long, sure. But so would your enemy, so I don't see any problem.
And units like healers die instantly already the moment they get into any kind of ranged attack range. They are focused on extremely - so increasing the hit rate wouldn't really change anything here, either.
The only real effect would be as I said: you have to watch less misses, making the game much less frustrating. Missions would probably also be shorter, which I think would be a small bonus, too.

That's the problem. 50% base hit rate is fundamental to the balance and design of the game: a base hit of 75% invalids the melee units in the game: everything just dies in a turn or 2 if they are in range and under concentrated fire. Right now even a backliner has a chance to survive a barrage and defensive upgrade is worthwhile on them.
The game wouldn't be less frustrating, but either more boring or the opposite: the optimized builds crush everything, yet the uninformed see no chance to win.
The game have to be redesigned from the ground up for 75% base hit rate.
A much easier way to shorten missions would be dramatically increase morale penalties from losing troops, possibly introducing a dominoes effect, so the losing side
actually routs instead of fights to the last troop.
tl;dr: why stay on the defensive when the system is biased toward all out offense?
I am not quite sure why how losing coinflips can create so many grievances for so many people, so as to facilitates the birth of so many conspiracy of programmers or, more horrifically still, thinking machines, amusing themselves with the miseries of so many suckers.

 

[thesheeep]

A much easier way to shorten missions would be dramatically increase morale penalties from losing troops, possibly introducing a dominoes effect, so the losing side actually routs instead of fights to the last troop.

That wouldn't work, either. It would make undead incredibly difficult to deal with.
Also, it would make missions where you have (stupid) allies even more miserable as you lose morale when the AI gets itself killed.

tl;dr: why stay on the defensive when the system is biased toward all out offense?

I would say that depends heavily on the mission. In most missions, the best idea is to spread out defensively, holding choke points and letting the enemy come. At least if you are like me and want to keep people alive.
That is also the only way to deal better with mages or potion throwers. You absolutely cannot get clustered in this game or you will suffer from potions-and-fireballs-to-the-head-syndrome.
Spreading out offensively only makes sense if you have superior and/or more numerous troops. And if your starting position is very good. At least on hard, I have very rarely seen any of that being the case.
Going on the offense from an inferior position is... not very Sun Tzu

I am not quite sure why how losing coinflips can create so many grievances for so many people, so as to facilitates the birth of so many conspiracy of programmers or, more horrifically still, thinking machines, amusing themselves with the miseries of so many suckers.

Perception bias. I don't usually pay too much attention to that as I know it is a thing, but it has gotten so bizarre in this game that I - as I said - started taking notes. And it turned out I get very unlucky way more often than I should.
Then the dev said he tested and couldn't see that. Well... not sure what to think of it.
I know why I prefer games that fudge dice rolls in order to prevent extreme luck/bad luck streaks.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

By the way, if the missing really bothers you, the game stores save files as plain text, you can just open it with notepad and help yourself. :D

 

[Galdred]

Perception bias. I don't usually pay too much attention to that as I know it is a thing, but it has gotten so bizarre in this game that I - as I said - started taking notes. And it turned out I get very unlucky way more often than I should.
Then the dev said he tested and couldn't see that. Well... not sure what to think of it.
I know why I prefer games that fudge dice rolls in order to prevent extreme luck/bad luck streaks.

The problem is that it makes the odds incorrect, so it makes it harder to plan, and encourages you to play in nonsensical ways by waiting for a streak of bad rolls before committing your heavy hitters (unless they are the last ones left to play obviously).

 

[thesheeep]

I know why I prefer games that fudge dice rolls in order to prevent extreme luck/bad luck streaks.

The problem is that it makes the odds incorrect, so it makes it harder to plan, and encourages you to play in nonsensical ways by waiting for a streak of bad rolls before committing your heavy hitters (unless they are the last ones left to play obviously).

I don't see how that makes it harder to plan. You don't plan according to dice rolls, you plan according to what makes sense strategically. Just because there is this super small chance of a guaranteed hit happening, you shouldn't be planning for it, that would be absurd.
You are right that knowing such fudging happens can lead to some hilarious stuff, but doesn't that just add MORE reactivity and fun to the game? I would find it very fun if after a series of horrible misses, I'd get a (visually confirmed!) sure hit. As would the enemy of course. And of course the other way around for a sure miss.
Sound roughly 233% more fun to me than just miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, ....

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

7 missions in now on normal difficulty.
Enjoyable game which is mostly about stamina management and using the possibilities offered by changing terrain (barricade here, followed by couple fire bottles there etc).
Enemies seem to have losing streaks on to hit rolls the same as the player.

Game actually has deterministic damage mechanic, but it only kicks in when attacking very tired units.

 

[Andhaira]

This looks sweet; kinda like Battle Brothers but with magic, how does it compare to Battle Brothers?

 

[Vlad_Konung]

This looks sweet; kinda like Battle Brothers but with magic, how does it compare to Battle Brothers?

Battle Brothers and Warbanners are absolutely different games.

Battle Brothers: a sandbox without a story, an open world
Warbanners: story-oriented. Almost linear plot.

Battle Brothers: many items, rich RPG elements
Warbanners: items are few, RPG elements are weak

Battle Brothers: the terrain is not interactive, there is almost no magic
Warbanners: an interactive environment, magic, siege, spreading fire

Battle Brothers: small mobility of units in combat
Warbanners: great mobility of units in combat - you can retreat, surround

Battle Brothers: high quality art
Warbanners: art does not interfere with playing

Battle Brothers: the duration of the game is almost infinite
Warbanners: The duration of the game is about 30 hours.

Battle Brothers: all battles random
Warbanners: all battles made by hand

Battle Brothers: replay is very high
Warbanners: replay below average.

Battle Brothers: English only
Warbanners: supports multiple languages

Battle Brothers: RPG with elements of tactics
Warbanners: tactics with RPG elements

 

[Jimmious]

I respect the humble, honest answer

 

[Vlad_Konung]

Congrats on making it to Top 100! http://www.indiedb.com/groups/2017-indie-of-the-year-awards/top100

Thank you! ...and help, please, Warbanners in the 2017 Indie of the Year http://www.indiedb.com/groups/2017-indie-of-the-year-awards/top100/#vote52421

 

[CryptRat]

Have you considered releasing a DRM-free version of the game (on GoG for example)?

 

[Vlad_Konung]

Have you considered releasing a DRM-free version of the game (on GoG for example)?

yes, now we are negotiating with gog

 

[CryptRat]

Cool.

 

[zhuge]

I respect the humble, honest answer

Indeed. I'm late to the party here but as Vlad is a rather modest person, let me post a follow up for him

Mechanics:
Battle Brothers: simple surround bonuses (no facing considerations)
Warbanners: has more detailed positioning mechanics via flanking

Battle Brothers: blanket Night penalties
Warbanners: more involved light/dark penalties (different for each tile) - requiring good positioning for optimal bonuses

Battle Brothers: punishing Fatigue system that very strongly encourages choosing Fatigue on levelups
Warbanners: more Stamina is useful but not so vital that you feel forced to devote lots of points to it


Randomness:
Battle Brothers: can place you in randomly unfair terrain (all enemy units start on elevation and you don't), so battles can turn out quite differently
Warbanners: all battles are scripted and everyone gets the same deal. Fair is fair

Battle Brothers: hired men can be Asthmatic Dastards with stats well below par (even for expensive hires) and hiring good men is an almost entirely random affair aka lottery
Warbanners: hired men have standard stats, standard costs, so you always know what you're getting or not getting

Battle Brothers: damage is more variable, weapons have a damage range, critical hits are a feature aka "those enemy arbalesters all rolled below 5, hit my men in round 1 before I could move and killed them outright"
Warbanners: damage depends on Str vs Armor and is static for a given pairing, critical hits are not a feature aka "enemy marksmen can't 'lucky' crit you". In other words, if you fail, you mostly have only yourself to blame :p


General features:
Battle Brothers: men require upkeep and care: need to be paid gold each day, fed food each day, need medicine for injuries, etc
Warbanners: men are tough independent guys who can take care of their own meals and are loyal to the party

Battle Brothers: Reputation is an underused feature of the game
Warbanners: Karma affects certain potential hirelings and how the game plays out

Battle Brothers: no horses, no women, no sieges, no magic (player), no healing... and no legs :p
Warbanners: has horses, has women, has sieges, has magic, has healing... and yes has legs xD


Oh and lastly:
Battle Brothers: Diminishing returns on certain stats, other hidden mechanics/rolls and no actual manual till this day.
Warbanners: Extremely clear in-game manual with detailed but not confusing mechanics. Hardly needed to ask the dev to clarify anything.

And before you say I seem to be against Battle Brothers. I am not. It is a great game and people should play it too. If I were against it, I would not be helping to update the wiki for it.
However, Warbanners remains an underrated gem which should get more attention.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/2284879949529168124

Added Polish language! Many thanks, Marcin Kędzior!

A small change - Halberdiers are now in the arena as part of the enemy armies.

I also forgot to mention that in version 1.1.5 on certain maps some Swordsmen have been replaced by Halberdiers. A Halberdier will appear in the starting army of the player as well — you may already know it yourself...

http://store.steampowered.com/news/externalpost/steam_community_announcements/2284879949514003626

A new unit is available for hire - the Halberdist (upgrade: 'Dig' and 'Defender')! Peasants are no longer available for hire. Their business is not war, but agriculture...

Balance updates:
Runesmith received +1 Armor;
Singing sword received +1 Strength;
Dancer received +1 to the Armor and +2 to Stamina;
Karranak received +1 for Speed.
Active skill "Throwing Knife" - cooldown is now equal to 2.

Units that have the maximum (not current!) Health or Stamina equal to 1 now die permanently.

Fixed a bonus from the "Giant's Scourge" feature - now the unit receives a +4 to Strength if defender has Ability “Rider” or “Huge" (previously received +3).

P.S. Translation into Chinese is tested. Active work is underway to translate into Spanish, Italian, Polish, French and Portuguese (Brazilian) languages.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

This looks sweet; kinda like Battle Brothers but with magic, how does it compare to Battle Brothers?

Battle Brothers and Warbanners are absolutely different games.

Battle Brothers: a sandbox without a story, an open world
Warbanners: story-oriented. Almost linear plot.

Battle Brothers: many items, rich RPG elements
Warbanners: items are few, RPG elements are weak

Battle Brothers: the terrain is not interactive, there is almost no magic
Warbanners: an interactive environment, magic, siege, spreading fire

Battle Brothers: small mobility of units in combat
Warbanners: great mobility of units in combat - you can retreat, surround

Battle Brothers: high quality art
Warbanners: art does not interfere with playing

Battle Brothers: the duration of the game is almost infinite
Warbanners: The duration of the game is about 30 hours.

Battle Brothers: all battles random
Warbanners: all battles made by hand

Battle Brothers: replay is very high
Warbanners: replay below average.

Battle Brothers: English only
Warbanners: supports multiple languages

Battle Brothers: RPG with elements of tactics
Warbanners: tactics with RPG elements

Just bought your game, because i was going to anyway, but loved your answers above... so bought it right now. Will play later. Hope you can keep making games. Enjoyed Drums too.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/650440/discussions/0/1482109512311146692/

crasleen_games [developer] 11 Nov, 2017 @ 12:15pm

Thank you for your interest!
In the near future we will continue to support Warbanners. For example, we are going to add something like "arena".
Next, we will probably do DLC - a new campaign (missions 7-10) for the orcs. DLC will be paid (approximate price - $ 5).

In distant plans we have work on Warbanners-2. We want to make an open world and a full-fledged role-playing system, make adjustments to the combat system. The game will be much closer to the Battle Brothers. In Warbanners-2 there will be a plot, an interactive environment, sieges, artifacts, light elements of steampunk and gothic, female characters ... And you can also hire orcs and necromancers.

 

[Vlad_Konung]

Thanks for the support! We continue to work on localization in new languages and minor changes (mainly, balance). Also we are working on the DLC and we are thinking about how the Warbanners-2 should look.