[EG II] TALES OF HARDY ADVENTURERS

[Chel]

better luck next time

In previous games on full settings (before Stumpy), after building up about 20 troops it becomes fairly easy to play. However, the first few days are rediculously filled with parties of 10 trying to kill you off.

you can hire 20 or more troops from Ramun right from the start.
and you cannot be killed before you reach level 3.

 

[Tamerlan]

Playing barbarian, at level 15 so far. Was very lucky to get Heavy Swadian Warsword in inventory at start. It made my life much easier and progressing in levels much faster

At level 12 has been forced to mount because of damn rhodok rebels Can't beat that numbers of Goliaths at foot. Also switched to War Scythe which I love because it can be used with shield and can swing (without shield). Sacrificed all my troops in battle against Swadian lord (I've joined Nords) and running around collecting cash for my dream - Watered Steel Scar.

The only companion I have is Marnid for his trading skills. Also using him as target for enemy archers to make them waste their arrows. After that they are easy pick 

After getting good levels/gear I'm planning to build pure Nord army with some little number of shocking cavalry troops (Caravan Guards/Khergit Lancers/Nord Monks).

 

[gamerwiz09]

I've been meaning to post the SS of my death with my 2nd character, but I just realized that I must've forgot to turn that thing on. Any ways, I got to level 4 or 6, and I think I got killed by refugees.

 

[Kharkhazad]

The Ballad of Sir Reinhardt:

This song I sing of young and brave
To be heard by all from Lord to knave
Reinhardt his name, a Swadian true
But tired of learning he soon grew
He left in search of Glory and fame
That men like I might sing his name
We start his tale in Zendar square
Where a man like him would not be rare
Soon he travelled far to Tihr
And on this journey he did not fear
He found there a new force to wield
A trophy sword and an iron shield
But soon return to Zendar he must
To gamble and train, or his skills would rust
And so after hours of torturous strain
All of Zendar  knew his name


In case you hadn't guessed he's a swadian engineer
I recently got my ass handed to me by 19 robbers who stole my journal so im trying to hunt them down

 

[Chel]

Playing barbarian, at level 15 so far. Was very lucky to get Heavy Swadian Warsword in inventory at start. It made my life much easier and progressing in levels much faster

At level 12 has been forced to mount because of damn rhodok rebels Can't beat that numbers of Goliaths at foot. Also switched to War Scythe which I love because it can be used with shield and can swing (without shield). Sacrificed all my troops in battle against Swadian lord (I've joined Nords) and running around collecting cash for my dream - Watered Steel Scar.

The only companion I have is Marnid for his trading skills. Also using him as target for enemy archers to make them waste their arrows. After that they are easy pick 

After getting good levels/gear I'm planning to build pure Nord army with some little number of shocking cavalry troops (Caravan Guards/Khergit Lancers/Nord Monks).

stick with nord monks

The Ballad of Sir Reinhardt:

This song I sing of young and brave
To be heard by all from Lord to knave
Reinhardt his name, a Swadian true
But tired of learning he soon grew
He left in search of Glory and fame
That men like I might sing his name
We start his tale in Zendar square
Where a man like him would not be rare
Soon he travelled far to Tihr
And on this journey he did not fear
He found there a new force to wield
A trophy sword and an iron shield
But soon return to Zendar he must
To gamble and train, or his skills would rust
And so after hours of torturous strain
All of Zendar  knew his name


In case you hadn't guessed he's a swadian engineer
I recently got my ass handed to me by 19 robbers who stole my journal so im trying to hunt them down

does the ballad continue? or did the robbers put an end to Reinhardt?

 

[Kharkhazad]

Im sorry to say a second group of robbers did, alas, put an end to him (but i did get the journal back first!  )

 

[Tamerlan]

Killed 2 Rhodok rebels parties of 50+ by myself (with Marnid taking all shots from their arbalests). Huge experience boost. Love that barbarian with 9 throwing.

 

[Gaz-1]

This is the tale of a humble hunter Fredirik, who rose from obscurity to fame, for his ability to make rain.

Sure, we actually mean a rain of arrows, but rain's stil rain, right?

With his merry band (about 30) of deer and bear hunters, raining sharp, pointy death from afar.

Over 100 men has he killed, with another 70 inexplicatly knocked unconscious.

With his bow of legend (admittedly, it was winnings from a particularily fortunate gamble) he wanders Caldaria filling people with very sharp and painful yard-long shafts.

(I just wondered how a ranged character would do. He's done very well for himself so far, and I guess an army of deer hunters isn't too shabby, either.)

 

[Wonderland]

Wow, never would have guessed it. I'm guessing he's a mounted archer to have been able to survive so long?

-edit-
Holy moly, I just realized that the hunter character can't even use the horse archery skill, and is 7 points away from being able to ride his own horse. That being said, I started my own game as a hunter and it's been fantastic! Of course so far I've only dealt with bear clan scouts for the most part, with the more notable victories being against some Swadian and Vaegir deserters, as well as a group of Onyx pilgrims. I'm already past the level Sir Wunderlin was when he met his demise.... the arrow showers are pretty incredible. However, I'm not a big fan of deer hunters with bows and arrows upgrading to bear hunters with javelins. I'd much prefer a dedicated bow and arrow group, upgrading to a better one, and a separate javelin group. But anyhoo, for now I'm just not upgrading most of my deer hunters, though I wish I could to even better hunters. 

 

[Gaz-1]

Yeah, amazingly the foot archer does fairly alright. As long as he has backup. 

Yeah, but seeing a Bear Clan gruop literally *melt* from the arrows is quite satisfying.

Yeah, I wish there were better dedicated neutral archers, but deer hunters aren't bad. Aren't bad as in having bows and you can buy any number of them at 30 denars each.

 

[Wonderland]

This has really been a lot more fun than I could have imagined, not to mention successful. Wunderlin (the hunter this time  ) is at level 9 currently and I'm having a blast. He travels with right around 30 deer hunters and Ymira by his side. Able to maintain pretty good map speed, with a sizeable pack of horses to carry around loot and so on. He's moved on from bear clan scouts to bigger and better things, like deserter parties, bear clan bands, refugees, manhunters, etc.

Had a pretty stupid moment which could have cost Wunderlin his life when he ventured out ahead of his entire party to get a couple of shots off against an outnumbered Vaegir deserter party. Those horses are faster than I thought! He missed a clear shot at a guy galloping right at him and WHAM! Sliced his guts clear open, down instantly. But he clearly deserved it. Luckily, Wunderlin only suffered minor wounds to the torso and a blow to the head... course when he got up, barely able to hold up his bow, he decided to fight on rather than to retreat and recuperate. What ended up happening was inevitable, but he didn't know any better what with that blow to the head fogging up his thinking and all.... he suffered yet another wound, this time a minor cut in the arm, as well as YET ANOTHER blow to the head, further blurring his mind. This time he couldn't go on, but he ordered his men to attack without him, and they did a good job mopping up the remains.

The wounds would take a total of 10 days to fully heal, but after a couple of days rest at an Inn, Wunderlin was back in the field, going at it like nothing had happened. He's had a few close calls besides this, but never gone down quite so bad. Just a couple of arrows to the legs, one right in the abdomen that almost took him out, but he hung on by a thread. But yeah, it's been great. Bought himself a heavy ancient bow, a couple of bags of heavy bodkin arrows, and an old sword by his side. He can't swing it worth a damn, but he rarely needs to. The enemy usually routs before the battle lines even clash. Of course, it's trickier when dealing with cavalry or heavily armored and shield wielding foes, but so far Wunderlin's only lost a few men compared to the dozens, or perhaps even well over a hundred at this point enemies he and his men have slain.

Oh yeah, and he's collected quite a few books as well, 4 at this point and it's only been a couple of weeks. Hasn't come across too many trophies yet, and unfortunately those he has have fallen victim to his crippling gambling addiction, which Ramun facilitates the old bugger. He's gotten some decent stuff though, the most notable of which was a lame saracen warhorse, which he promptly auctioned off for a nice purse. Best part about this game I think is the manageable upkeep costs of an all-deer hunter army. I thin, he's paying only around 450-500 every week (5 days, whatever) and they're easily recruitable from Ramun at 60 gold pieces a couple. I think my whole army is ready for an upgrade to bear hunters, but I'm keeping them as is for now. Maybe when the time is right, I'll upgrade them all at once for some big offensive.... or not.

 

[gamerwiz09]

I wouldn't give up deer hunters for javelin throwing bear hunters. But, Q: Are the deer hunters really pretty good? Only got a few mixed in with a small party once, and didn't really notice their performance. Are they comparable to vaegir marksmen?

 

[Chel]

Although Bear Hunters have shorter range with their javelins, they are much better at melee than Deer Hunters, have more hitpoints and power strike. Deer Hunters usually start dying pretty quick if any melee infantry reaches them (Vaegir Marksmen are much better in that regard, but also much more expencive!), bear hunters can hold their own.

When I tried playing the hunter I usually kept about half deer hunters and half bear hunters to better deal with lots of melee infantry or heavy cavalry.

On which attribute are you focusing your hunter then? strength for armor, agility for athletics/riding, or int/charisma?

I am trying to find a good way to play a light footman - starting as a wildman (not going to ride horses at all) and focusing on intelligence instead of strength or agility. At the start put 1 point into agility for 15 total, 1 into strength for 12 total (for 4 power strike), and the rest into intelligence. Raise pathfinding to 5, shield and weapon master to 2-3, place extra weapon prof points into one-handed or polearm (for spear/sword+shield). Then try to get some throwing weapons (javelins!).

As far as troops use a mix of nord wildmen from Ramun and nord recruits from villages, with wildmen free to charge and recruits following me around. Not too bad so far, reached level 2!

 

[Wonderland]

That's the beauty of deer hunters. They certainly are dead on contact if a general mele ensues, but for the most part the enemy is done for before ever reaching my party. And the main thing here is, the entire party consists of deer hunters, so that's around 30 arrow coming at you every second or so. You won't see much production from them with only a few scattered amongst a diverse party, which is why I underestimated them in the first place. But put them all together, have them follow you to the top of a hill or some other good vantage point, and you're nearly unstoppable. They're strength lies in their numbers.

As I said though, cavalry may pose a problem, but even they have been dealt with reasonably well so far. And heavily armored and shield carrying nords might get closer than most enemies, but eventually they're shields break and armor pierced. One of the toughest tasks I think was taking out a group of fallen warrior's (not exactly sure which types, but I can only assume the weakest ones, which are still pretty strong!). Luckily, I had excellent positioning, on top of a high hill, as well as outnumbering them almost 3 to 1. It still took a lot of shots to bring them down, and even so some of them got to my hunters and killed off a few.

Y'know I desperately wish there was a 'hold fire' command like there is in the new releases of Native. These fellas shoot when there's no point in doing so, and they do run out of arrows by the time we're chasing down routers. I'm afraid that if we get to some even tougher foes with greater numbers, they'll run out of arrows at a lot more inopportune times. Chel, is there any way to script such a command into the mod yourself? Maybe just using whatever Native uses to do so?

And as for what I put my points into, so far it's been all charisma and intelligence. I first started off giving him as much ironflesh as I could, which is 3 or 4 I think, as well as agility at about the same number. Other than that, it's been all trade and surgery I think... though I'm sure there's a few other things in there. I haven't invested anything at all into riding. I'm gonna stick with foot archery, and since the man believes it so noble and doesn't like the idea of horse archery, I think I'll respect that. I keep a heavy mule in my horse pack in case of emergency, but so far there's been no need.

 

[Zed]

I think either of the following will make them hold fire:

Follow me!
Use blunt weapons!

 

[Wonderland]

Neither of them do, I'd tried both.

 

[G36E]

I see that Arma's listened to my suggestion and implemented "hold fire" j/k, I suppose lots of people wanted that. I hope Chel can put it in, my illumination age Vaegir army has a tendency to run out of ammo before the fallen ones reach optimal firing range .

 

[Wonderland]

Wunderlin the hunter has reached level 12, but ran into a bit of a snag recently. He'd gathered a party of 40 men (and one woman to heal them all!) in Zendar, all deer hunters except 2 Vaegir marksmen he'd rescued,  and headed South in search of battle. Recently, he'd been attacking Nord patrols and smaller parties, taking care of them with ease and not rousing any ill will towards him since nobody would be left alive to tell about his attack. So he headed south and came across a few formidable opponents, fallen warriors, swadian parties, and so on. He only lost a few men in the process, including the two Vaegirsi his party.

Along the way, he made a good amount of money from loot and forcing peasants and villagers to give him supplies, which he'd then sell off at the nearest city merchant. Wunderlin was a quick learner and had greatly improved his ability to barter to buy for less and sell for more. In his travels, he came across a great Heavy Titan Bow. His mind was set, he must have it! It would cost him over 50,000 gold pieces to buy it, and he had nearly 35,000 at the time, so he set out with a one track mind to make money fast and hopefully, the bow would still be there when he had enough.

He stole from every village in sight, and attacked anything that moved (within reason of course, considering his own party makeup). He had accumulated around 42,000 and was well on his way when he attacked a group of manhunters, about 15-17 of them, with his 35 deer hunters. The result was anything but expected. The surprisingly heavily armored cavalry rushed to the lines without suffering any losses it seemed, and the deer hunters were helpless. One after another they fell, and Wunderlin himself, not very adept at close range combat, received a serious blow to the torso. Somehow, someway, his men were able to carry him off to safety and escape. 1 man lay dead, 20 more wounded from the engagement. They traveled to the nearest city and stayed at the Inn for an entire day and night to recuperate.

The wound Wunderlin suffered was a serious one and would take upwards of a month to fully heal. His strength and agility had diminished considerably, he wasn't himself. This voyage to the south had been promising, but ultimately ended in disaster. The next day, he ascended his mule and began the long trek back to Zendar. He'd acquired several battle trophies, and even a couple of war trophies during this campaign, so he had some gambling to do.... not able to purchase the titan bow himself, he hoped lady luck would pay him a visit. She had other plans it seemed. But the warhorses, heavy arms and armor he did get were sufficient to make a good deal of money pawning them off. He would stay in Zendar for a while, his wounds bothering him, his moral shattered.

 

[Peasant]

I had great luck. Richard the manhunter set out on his epic quest but just as he reached zendar band of warriors got him. Oh well, that's only -2 strength and 1 agility.

 

[Chel]

I had great luck. Richard the manhunter set out on his epic quest but just as he reached zendar band of warriors got him. Oh well, that's only -2 strength and 1 agility.

Great luck indeed! They seem to be spawning around Zendar often

Wonderland, try 30 Bear Hunters/10 Deer Hunters instead of 40 Deer hunters. The javelins pierce armor much better than arrows, and overall Bear hunters are just stronger troops.