With all major features now in place, we’re making sure that everything works as it should and is properly balanced for you to play. At the same time, we’re squeezing in a few more quality of life improvements that you’ve been asking for, and our artist is adding some more polish to the game – such as an overhauled appearance of your employers. Let’s discover what more is new with the upcoming update!

Your employers now actually look like they have the money to hire a mercenary company, as they’ve received a bunch of new clothes and hats that make them look sufficiently spoiled and arrogant.



War between noble houses is one of the three upcoming late game crises. Because you’ll be fighting a lot more soldiers of those noble houses now, we’ve overhauled their units for more variety and challenge. They’ve become more specialized with dedicated users of polearms and greatswords, and they also got some new hats to have the individual units stand out more. Lootable, of course.



You may also recall that they got a second and new glorious music track playing when you fight them.

We managed to squeeze in a few more quality of life improvements this week. One of those is a feature many of you have been waiting for: the ability to speed up time on the worldmap.



Have you ever escorted a caravan, got attacked by overwhelming enemy hordes and decided that this really isn’t worth dying over? You’re now able to leave that caravan behind, quite possibly to die, directly from the worldmap. No need anymore to tediously move every one of your men to the edges of the combat map first.



Finally, the tooltip for any faction in the relations screen will now show you a log of all recent events, positive and negative, that influenced your relation. Makes it much easier to understand why someone’s hating your guts.



Our very own Jaysen will start a new Let’s Play series and guided tour through everything that’s new and yours to experience later this February!

With all major features now in place, we’re making sure that everything works as it should and is properly balanced for you to play. At the same time, we’re squeezing in a few more quality of life improvements that you’ve been asking for, and our artist is adding some more polish to the game – such as an overhauled appearance of your employers. Let’s discover what more is new with the upcoming update!

Your employers now actually look like they have the money to hire a mercenary company, as they’ve received a bunch of new clothes and hats that make them look sufficiently spoiled and arrogant.



War between noble houses is one of the three upcoming late game crises. Because you’ll be fighting a lot more soldiers of those noble houses now, we’ve overhauled their units for more variety and challenge. They’ve become more specialized with dedicated users of polearms and greatswords, and they also got some new hats to have the individual units stand out more. Lootable, of course.



You may also recall that they got a second and new glorious music track playing when you fight them.

We managed to squeeze in a few more quality of life improvements this week. One of those is a feature many of you have been waiting for: the ability to speed up time on the worldmap.



Have you ever escorted a caravan, got attacked by overwhelming enemy hordes and decided that this really isn’t worth dying over? You’re now able to leave that caravan behind, quite possibly to die, directly from the worldmap. No need anymore to tediously move every one of your men to the edges of the combat map first.



Finally, the tooltip for any faction in the relations screen will now show you a log of all recent events, positive and negative, that influenced your relation. Makes it much easier to understand why someone’s hating your guts.



Our very own Jaysen will start a new Let’s Play series and guided tour through everything that’s new and yours to experience later this February!

We’re beginning to wrap things up this week by finishing the last remaining items on our roadmap of things to make it into the final major update. The obituary is done, the veterans’ hall is now fully working, and we’ve added a whole bunch of smaller features. If all goes according to plan, you can expect the update to hit the beta branch of the game later in February. Let’s take a look at shiny new things!

Formerly known as the Veterans’ Hall, the Training Hall is now working fully in the game. Usually to be found at larger cities and castles, you can pay to have your men trained in various ways here to shape them into hardened mercenaries – especially useful for mercenary companies later in the game that take on new blood.



Also known as the memorial wall or graveyard, the obituary is a new screen that lists all of the men that have fallen under your command so you can properly honor their sacrifice. Aside from being reminded of their achievements and time with you, you’ll also get an unnecessarily colorful description of how they died in a column of its own.



Old dogs can in fact learn new tricks, as your men are now able to attain levels beyond the 11th character level. Any such level is considered a ‘veteran level’ and, for balance reasons, comes without a perk point and with limited attribute gain, but it does allow anyone living long enough to truly reach their potential, for you to continue to experience the leveling progression also in the very very late game.



Another new feature is the ability to attack anyone on the worldmap, no matter your relations, when turning your friendly glove mouse cursor into a threatening sword cursor by holding the Ctrl key and left-clicking them. This only works when you’re striking out on your own and are not currently employed, but it does allow you to go the route of banditry and make lots of enemies if you truly want to, without having to first annoy your employers enough to finally declare you hostile. Although there won’t be any new gameplay aspects to support banditry for now, there’s a new deterrent coming: competing mercenary companies that can also get hired by your enemies to hunt you down.



The coming update will add around a dozen new contracts to the game, and several dozen new events. We’re still busy writing more of them – more interaction with your mercenaries, new encounters as one of the late game crises ravage the land, and some hidden stuff to discover. We’re also creating new illustrations to go with these. Have a look!

We’re beginning to wrap things up this week by finishing the last remaining items on our roadmap of things to make it into the final major update. The obituary is done, the veterans’ hall is now fully working, and we’ve added a whole bunch of smaller features. If all goes according to plan, you can expect the update to hit the beta branch of the game later in February. Let’s take a look at shiny new things!

Formerly known as the Veterans’ Hall, the Training Hall is now working fully in the game. Usually to be found at larger cities and castles, you can pay to have your men trained in various ways here to shape them into hardened mercenaries – especially useful for mercenary companies later in the game that take on new blood.



Also known as the memorial wall or graveyard, the obituary is a new screen that lists all of the men that have fallen under your command so you can properly honor their sacrifice. Aside from being reminded of their achievements and time with you, you’ll also get an unnecessarily colorful description of how they died in a column of its own.



Old dogs can in fact learn new tricks, as your men are now able to attain levels beyond the 11th character level. Any such level is considered a ‘veteran level’ and, for balance reasons, comes without a perk point and with limited attribute gain, but it does allow anyone living long enough to truly reach their potential, for you to continue to experience the leveling progression also in the very very late game.



Another new feature is the ability to attack anyone on the worldmap, no matter your relations, when turning your friendly glove mouse cursor into a threatening sword cursor by holding the Ctrl key and left-clicking them. This only works when you’re striking out on your own and are not currently employed, but it does allow you to go the route of banditry and make lots of enemies if you truly want to, without having to first annoy your employers enough to finally declare you hostile. Although there won’t be any new gameplay aspects to support banditry for now, there’s a new deterrent coming: competing mercenary companies that can also get hired by your enemies to hunt you down.



The coming update will add around a dozen new contracts to the game, and several dozen new events. We’re still busy writing more of them – more interaction with your mercenaries, new encounters as one of the late game crises ravage the land, and some hidden stuff to discover. We’re also creating new illustrations to go with these. Have a look!

Time to take a look at some changes on how contracts work this week. Negotiations have changed, and we’re introducing a new minor feature to make contracts and your actions within the world of Battle Brothers have more of an impact: situations. Let’s find out what that’s about!

With your actions in the world should come consequences. As we’ve mentioned in a previous dev blog, contracts are now based more on what is actually happening around settlements and less on artificially spawning things for you to fight. Lots of greenskin activity in the neighborhood? Then there’s a good chance people want to hire you to take care of them. There’s direwolves roaming nearby? People are likely to want to hire you to hunt them down.

We want to take this a step further. You know how the village burgomeister is telling you of how people are disappearing and that’s why he wants you to hunt down those beasts? It’s no longer just flavor as we’re introducing situations for settlements.



A settlement can find itself in any number of different situations. If there’s something roaming about, such as direwolves, villagers can be disappearing, which influences both the number of recruits available and the prices you get. As you take on the contract and rid the village of this terror, you’ll resolve the situation and the village can prosper again. Depending on your actions and success in fulfilling contracts, settlements can also find themselves in new situations. For example, your action of escorting an important caravan can result in a castle being freshly supplied, which grants you and everyone else a better selection of goods to shop for. On the other hand, if things don’t go as planned, a settlement can find its granaries raided or burned down, which makes food more rare and more expensive.

While just a small feature by itself, introducing these situations contributes to your actions having more of an impact in the world of Battle Brothers, and it makes the economy feel less static as settlements have actual problems to deal with and benefits to gain from hiring you. In addition, having this system in place will allow us to potentially extend it in the future with situations not linked to contracts, such as the outbreak of a disease, for a more dynamic world.

Here’s the thing: Negotiating contracts should be a part of gameplay, but the way it works now, you just ask for more money until the employer denies, and that’s it. It’s automatic, there’s little thought behind it, it’s not an interesting mechanic. So yeah, something needs to change. There’s two ways we could have gone about it: Either turn this into a more complex minigame of negotiating for better pay, or change it into something different. While the idea of creating a complex and fun minigame may be intriguing, it’s also not feasible within a limited timeframe and an already packed roadmap, so we went with the second option.



Contract negotiations are now no longer about how much crowns you are to get, at least not directly, but about when and for what. There’s now a set amount of crowns per contract, depending on the type of contract, its difficulty, your renown and a small random factor. What you’re actually negotiating are payment modalities. What percentage is to be paid in advance? How much per head you return with and how much flat payment? Employers have their own thoughts on the matter, and you can ask them to pay out slices of the contract money in different ways. It’s no longer about getting a few crowns more or less in advance, it’s about whether you get half in advance or not. Sure you may not negotiate as often as before anymore, but if you do, it’ll be a much more deliberate action now.

Time to take a look at some changes on how contracts work this week. Negotiations have changed, and we’re introducing a new minor feature to make contracts and your actions within the world of Battle Brothers have more of an impact: situations. Let’s find out what that’s about!

With your actions in the world should come consequences. As we’ve mentioned in a previous dev blog, contracts are now based more on what is actually happening around settlements and less on artificially spawning things for you to fight. Lots of greenskin activity in the neighborhood? Then there’s a good chance people want to hire you to take care of them. There’s direwolves roaming nearby? People are likely to want to hire you to hunt them down.

We want to take this a step further. You know how the village burgomeister is telling you of how people are disappearing and that’s why he wants you to hunt down those beasts? It’s no longer just flavor as we’re introducing situations for settlements.



A settlement can find itself in any number of different situations. If there’s something roaming about, such as direwolves, villagers can be disappearing, which influences both the number of recruits available and the prices you get. As you take on the contract and rid the village of this terror, you’ll resolve the situation and the village can prosper again. Depending on your actions and success in fulfilling contracts, settlements can also find themselves in new situations. For example, your action of escorting an important caravan can result in a castle being freshly supplied, which grants you and everyone else a better selection of goods to shop for. On the other hand, if things don’t go as planned, a settlement can find its granaries raided or burned down, which makes food more rare and more expensive.

While just a small feature by itself, introducing these situations contributes to your actions having more of an impact in the world of Battle Brothers, and it makes the economy feel less static as settlements have actual problems to deal with and benefits to gain from hiring you. In addition, having this system in place will allow us to potentially extend it in the future with situations not linked to contracts, such as the outbreak of a disease, for a more dynamic world.

Here’s the thing: Negotiating contracts should be a part of gameplay, but the way it works now, you just ask for more money until the employer denies, and that’s it. It’s automatic, there’s little thought behind it, it’s not an interesting mechanic. So yeah, something needs to change. There’s two ways we could have gone about it: Either turn this into a more complex minigame of negotiating for better pay, or change it into something different. While the idea of creating a complex and fun minigame may be intriguing, it’s also not feasible within a limited timeframe and an already packed roadmap, so we went with the second option.



Contract negotiations are now no longer about how much crowns you are to get, at least not directly, but about when and for what. There’s now a set amount of crowns per contract, depending on the type of contract, its difficulty, your renown and a small random factor. What you’re actually negotiating are payment modalities. What percentage is to be paid in advance? How much per head you return with and how much flat payment? Employers have their own thoughts on the matter, and you can ask them to pay out slices of the contract money in different ways. It’s no longer about getting a few crowns more or less in advance, it’s about whether you get half in advance or not. Sure you may not negotiate as often as before anymore, but if you do, it’ll be a much more deliberate action now.

Work is progressing well on the late game crises – all new contracts and twists are in the game now, and next up is implementing events and some remaining mechanics. So while we’re busy doing that, let’s take a look at some of the new weapons and tools that the upcoming update will bring to the table. Read on!

The upcoming update will bring a total of at least 13 new weapons to the game. While some are unique to the Ancient Dead and come with unique skills, others are there to fill the remaining gaps in progression.

Hooked Blade

An agricultural tool adapted for use in battle, the Hooked Blade is a mid-tier variant of the Billhook. We’re handing it out to bandit raiders as we speak, for two purposes: first, to smoothen the difficulty spike experienced when meeting them in the early game, and second, to smoothen the power spike when looting these in the early game. The Billhook is still sometimes wielded by your enemies, of course, but it’s more rare now, and more often found on well-equipped noble troops or other mercenaries.

Rondel Dagger

A long, quadrangular spike designed to pierce through weak points in armor, the Rondel Dagger is a high-tier variant of the existing dagger. It’s there to make daggers more viable as niche weapons later on, and it’s what named daggers are now based on in terms of stats. Note that the upcoming update will also bring a minor change to how the Puncture skill works!

Military Pick

An evolution of the classic pickaxe, the Military Pick has been adapted for use in combat to puncture the sturdiest of armors. It fills the gap between the low-tier Pickaxe and the high-tier Warhammer, and by being both more affordable and common than the latter, will give you the means to successfully engage heavily armored opponents, such as Orc Warriors, earlier in the game.

Heavy Crossbow

The heavy crossbow is the new high tier variant of the crossbow, and is effective even against heavily armored targets. It’s roughly equivalent to the high-tier Warbow, and should make the use of crossbows more viable later on in the game if you favor armor-piercing qualities and ease of use over range and rate of fire. Named crossbows are now also based on the Heavy Crossbow in terms of stats.

The update won’t just add new weapons, but also several new tools and accessories. Some of these can be unlocked as rewards for fulfilling ambitions, while others can simply be bought at the right place.

Falcon

A trained falcon can be taken into battle similar to wardogs. It doesn’t fight, but can at any time be let loose to lift the fog of war in an area around you for the remainder of the current round. Useful, for example, when you’re ambushed in deep forest, or looking for that necromancer that keeps evading you.

Sergeant’s Sash

The Sergeant’s Sash can be earned by fulfilling a specific ambition, and it’s to be worn by your second-in-command in the accessory slot. Not only does it make him visually stand out, it also grants a bonus to the Resolve stat, which in turn synergizes with the ability to rally the men and raise their morale.

Work is progressing well on the late game crises – all new contracts and twists are in the game now, and next up is implementing events and some remaining mechanics. So while we’re busy doing that, let’s take a look at some of the new weapons and tools that the upcoming update will bring to the table. Read on!

The upcoming update will bring a total of at least 13 new weapons to the game. While some are unique to the Ancient Dead and come with unique skills, others are there to fill the remaining gaps in progression.

Hooked Blade

An agricultural tool adapted for use in battle, the Hooked Blade is a mid-tier variant of the Billhook. We’re handing it out to bandit raiders as we speak, for two purposes: first, to smoothen the difficulty spike experienced when meeting them in the early game, and second, to smoothen the power spike when looting these in the early game. The Billhook is still sometimes wielded by your enemies, of course, but it’s more rare now, and more often found on well-equipped noble troops or other mercenaries.

Rondel Dagger

A long, quadrangular spike designed to pierce through weak points in armor, the Rondel Dagger is a high-tier variant of the existing dagger. It’s there to make daggers more viable as niche weapons later on, and it’s what named daggers are now based on in terms of stats. Note that the upcoming update will also bring a minor change to how the Puncture skill works!

Military Pick

An evolution of the classic pickaxe, the Military Pick has been adapted for use in combat to puncture the sturdiest of armors. It fills the gap between the low-tier Pickaxe and the high-tier Warhammer, and by being both more affordable and common than the latter, will give you the means to successfully engage heavily armored opponents, such as Orc Warriors, earlier in the game.

Heavy Crossbow

The heavy crossbow is the new high tier variant of the crossbow, and is effective even against heavily armored targets. It’s roughly equivalent to the high-tier Warbow, and should make the use of crossbows more viable later on in the game if you favor armor-piercing qualities and ease of use over range and rate of fire. Named crossbows are now also based on the Heavy Crossbow in terms of stats.

The update won’t just add new weapons, but also several new tools and accessories. Some of these can be unlocked as rewards for fulfilling ambitions, while others can simply be bought at the right place.

Falcon

A trained falcon can be taken into battle similar to wardogs. It doesn’t fight, but can at any time be let loose to lift the fog of war in an area around you for the remainder of the current round. Useful, for example, when you’re ambushed in deep forest, or looking for that necromancer that keeps evading you.

Sergeant’s Sash

The Sergeant’s Sash can be earned by fulfilling a specific ambition, and it’s to be worn by your second-in-command in the accessory slot. Not only does it make him visually stand out, it also grants a bonus to the Resolve stat, which in turn synergizes with the ability to rally the men and raise their morale.

We return from the holidays with our first dev blog this year. As announced in our roadmap to the finish line, Battle Brothers is about to receive Steam achievements and trading cards. Let’s take a look at both this week while we continue to work hard on the late game crises we’ve talked about last time. Onwards!

You may have already spotted some Steam achievements for Battle Brothers popping up over the last few weeks – that’s because we’ve been testing them. There’s currently a total of 70 achievements in the game, although that number may still change slightly in either direction. We wanted the achievements to be a good mix between short and long term challenges, some more serious and some more fun, as well as some rewarding the natural progression as you play the game. Here’s a few examples of different achievements you’ll be able to unlock once the next update is live.

Swingin’
Kill 3 enemies with one AoE attack.

Who Let The Dogs Out?
Kill an enemy with a wardog.

How To Berserk
Kill an Orc Berserker in melee while high on mushrooms.

Outgunned
Kill a Goblin Overseer with a ranged weapon.

King Of The Hill
Defeat another mercenary company.

Explorer
Uncover 2/3 of the map.

Campaigner
Reach day 100 on veteran difficulty or higher.

Never Give Up
Lose 10 campaigns in Ironman mode.

Bane Of The Undead
Defeat the Undead Scourge at any difficulty level.


Battle Brothers is also about to receive some Steam trading cards with the upcoming update. Each trading card is for one of the different types of factions currently in the game – the Mercenaries, the Noble Houses, the Bandits, the Ancient Dead, the Undead, the Goblins and the Orcs.



The full-sized trading cards show the faction with their selection of banners and a variety of units with different gear in wallpaper format. Of course, you’ll also be able to unlock badges, profile backgrounds and emoticons.

We return from the holidays with our first dev blog this year. As announced in our roadmap to the finish line, Battle Brothers is about to receive Steam achievements and trading cards. Let’s take a look at both this week while we continue to work hard on the late game crises we’ve talked about last time. Onwards!

You may have already spotted some Steam achievements for Battle Brothers popping up over the last few weeks – that’s because we’ve been testing them. There’s currently a total of 70 achievements in the game, although that number may still change slightly in either direction. We wanted the achievements to be a good mix between short and long term challenges, some more serious and some more fun, as well as some rewarding the natural progression as you play the game. Here’s a few examples of different achievements you’ll be able to unlock once the next update is live.

Swingin’
Kill 3 enemies with one AoE attack.

Who Let The Dogs Out?
Kill an enemy with a wardog.

How To Berserk
Kill an Orc Berserker in melee while high on mushrooms.

Outgunned
Kill a Goblin Overseer with a ranged weapon.

King Of The Hill
Defeat another mercenary company.

Explorer
Uncover 2/3 of the map.

Campaigner
Reach day 100 on veteran difficulty or higher.

Never Give Up
Lose 10 campaigns in Ironman mode.

Bane Of The Undead
Defeat the Undead Scourge at any difficulty level.


Battle Brothers is also about to receive some Steam trading cards with the upcoming update. Each trading card is for one of the different types of factions currently in the game – the Mercenaries, the Noble Houses, the Bandits, the Ancient Dead, the Undead, the Goblins and the Orcs.



The full-sized trading cards show the faction with their selection of banners and a variety of units with different gear in wallpaper format. Of course, you’ll also be able to unlock badges, profile backgrounds and emoticons.