OP Beak things ate my village - it was pretty cool.

[nicolettijd]

It seems there were some changes, but I hadn't been following the updates. Since Steam handles my updates the updates had happened automatically. Not a big deal, and nice to see Greenlanders vs. Ashlanders in the game now.

Before the update I had about 22 people running a village in Vain next to the river between two of the Hive villages. I could mine copper and sell it in return for building supplies and all was going pretty well for me. So I sent my war-party to seek out the bottom right corner of the map. Meanwhile my home base group had a little shopping foursome going on a shopping run.

I arrive at the village with the foursome and there are no Hive to be found. I figured, hey it's an update glitch, and not a big deal. Although it was going to make funding my war-party abroad more difficult without anyone to sell to. Luckily the Hive shop was easily pilfered with nobody around - even the items in the store were not owned, as if everyone just vanished. Like I said, though, I was fine with this, and went shop-lifting instead.

Though we needed more supplies, so I directed the foursome to the other Hive village on the other side of my settlement. Same story here. No hive. Free loot. Bittersweet, right? I made them sneak for immersion purposes, and then noticed there were a few beak things outside, and thought maybe sneaking was a good idea. They didn't seem to be able to enter the hive dwellings, so that was nice for me. As I waited for them to clear I realized there was an entire herd of beak things. Nothing too crazy, but more than a shopping foursome could handle - their attack/defense ranged from 8 to 17. A noob group. To make matters worse they were weighted down with loot, so I would have to make a break for it when the coast was clear.

I broke when I thought the coast was clear, but one beak thing stood in our way. One? no problem, the six or so in the village (now comfortably far behind us) was the major concern. A quick fight should fix this - NO! Shoot! Beak thing took down somebody with a single headshot? And hurt the leg, quite badly, of another? It took everything we had to kill it and move on, but wait, here come two more of them. Also, I have the death probability sitting somewhere around double by now, so going down is very risky when you're outnumbered.

It becomes apparent that two beak things vs. three weak shoppers is not going how it would have in the last patch, when a creep though suddenly hit me: Did the new OP beak things eat the whole Hive village? I could see how they could with ten beaks flailing around.

I sent in my heavily armored guards from town for support. They pack mercenary plate and heavy weapons and their leader is a formidable force in his own right. Baker and his boys. They'll make short work of those two beak things.

And then it gets worse. The herd of what looks to be ten to twelve beak things is moving from town towards my base. My base has walls extending up to the river, but not over it, leaving a wide, though greatly retarding, opening to the base. I had plans to build crossbows coordinated on this. I had plans to build crossbows but hadn't done it yet! I signal a general retreat. It's every man or woman or shek and whatever else for him or herself.

The main group of light-weight escapees make it through the first gate and I shut it before opening up the back gate. Maybe they can run around to the back and slip in while the herd aimlessly pecks at the front gate? Nope, the herd is on them like flies on poop. And it's my beloved heavies that are falling behind. Screams from falling victims begin to fill the air.

Where is my war party? They're beyond the rebel city; by the time they arrive we'll all be dead if we don't do something! They rally to fight off a few by the back gate and save three straggling citizens. What a mistake that was.

The herd rounds and concentrates on the action - I signal a retreat, but few make it into our only small housing structure. They patch up wounds while all around citizens are screaming as the beak things eat them alive. Seriously f'd up. Our Shek=doctor is being eaten alive in the river and screaming while her legs get ripped to shreds. two surviving engineers huddle in the one shack.

Eventually, the feast of man-flesh is enough to satisfy the majority of the beak herd and three more manage to regain consciousness and slip into the house. Only one hungry beak thing remains outside, but I know better than to try my luck.

There's a war party of 9 strong raiders on it's way, and I hope to God they don't run into another beak thing nest between here and there.

[Zeal]

One thing i do know that changed with the update, is the addition of a knock down feature. Unfortunately this seems to be bugged at the moment, in which when that knock down triggers, you get thrown unconscious for thousands of seconds (even when none of your hp bars are in the negative). This means that it doesn't matter how well prepared you are for a battle, you could still lose very easily based on the roll of the dice... Full high/specialist armored? Take 8 dmg from a single hit when initially at 100 in all areas? Doesn't matter. Unconscious for 3k seconds...

I'm suspecting this might have played a roll in your losses.

[Berzerker Jay]

For 3k seconds? My record so far is well over 7k.