Cannibal Threat in Okran's Pride!

[Berzerker Jay]

n/a

[Sol Lignum]

My guess would be - just big luck of cannibals? Because it's totally possible to walk in between patrols, or just sneak for a bit if one is in sight. After all, they can't cover whole territory. I had an assault too, they didn't liked that meat, and that led me to thinking that it's time to build a fort with bunch of cages on top for show

Considering protection fee, well, i'm sure something is coming as a part of trading routes, but besides that, i find if odd that farms (not sure about mines) are left unguarded. There should be at least 2-3 paladins with some servants.

[Berzerker Jay]

More than that. This feature, or bug, has just run my play-through into a wall. I can go no further, the next wave of unimpeded cannibals attacking moments after my last save point.... I have to admit this sucks to lose this game this way, and feels arbitrary and OP rather than fair play. If the final game were like this, I'd probably get bored fast. It would be nothing but tower defense.

Anyway, one thing's for sure. Non-military outposts are a thing of the past, and just as a merchant profession was starting to seem like a fun way to play through. There's no way merchants can deal with this. The only early game profession with this is basically mining or banditry. Build a farm and die.

[Berzerker Jay]

And yeah, suddenly nothing in Okran's Pride makes sense. The farms get wiped in an instant when the cannibals go through. Absolutely nothing there can stand up to them, and I'm sure subsequent waves will even wipe out the cities if we run there.

I liked Kenshi because it's one of the best sandbox game, but it just became very linear. Maximum warriors the game allows on your side is thirty, and it sends fifty cannibals at you. There's no room for farmers, that's for sure. Civilians are a liability. Hack, hack, hack, get bored and play something else.

I hope this isn't the final vision for the game. :/

[Berzerker Jay]

Talked to other people and this seems to be a fairly common way for games to end in 0.92.1. Always a massive OP wave of cannibals. My gate fell in two seconds because basically every one of them was able to swing at the gate at once. I literally had three engineers on the other side of it to try and repair while my turrets shot them down, but the engineers could not so much as start repairing.

The other stories I've heard are little different than that. If you get the warning of an incoming assault, abandon base. It's just no fun. Unless you have a trained military you're in for a bad time.

[Berzerker Jay]

I think I'm also bummed about losing this play-through. I was otherwise going to give the merchant profession two thumbs-up, but this turns those thumbs straight down. Merchant profession is unplayable, unless I suppose you never build a trading post.

Come to think of it, I don't think I want to go to the effort of starting a new military game just to fend off endless waves of cannibals. This really is a game-changer, and for the worse. I don't want to build an outpost at all, and then I just wonder how and if I want to play.

I really, really hope this is just a bug. Please let this be just a bug.... I think my affair with Kenshi may be over.

[Sol Lignum]

This sounds screwed. My experience with cannibals so far is about 15-20 of them against my 9 guys and gals. Practically those cannibals gave no fight, and gone down sooner then raptors o_O had merely 8-ish skills though, do they get stronger?

[Berzerker Jay]

This is how it started for me. I counted 46 cannibals initially, then saw two more come into view and just assumed 50. The next wave looked even bigger, but at that point my morale for it was basically "F this is BS" and I just sat scanning the horizon for a paladin patrol or anything.

I am not going to build another outpost on this current version. I'm also not going to save a game where any character is enslaved (the KO bug is automatic if you're wearing shackles, and you automatically flee from battle because they took away your weapon, which is another automatic KO bug,) so basically I don't know how to play this current version one way or another.

[Sol Lignum]

Played couple hours, 2-3 days passed ingame, after first cannibal attack, and it's also been the last. Idk, Jay, maybe your save was broken?

[Berzerker Jay]

I'm not the only one it's happened to. The time difference might be different game speeds we're playing at maybe, but if it's happened to multiple players I tend to think something's wrong. All in all I'd even welcome it if it was as you described, though I'd still feel it would be better if the perpetrators of the attack were more biome-relevant. I'm guessing it must be based on faction standings alone?

[Sol Lignum]

It has happened. 4 of my people were knocked down, few got considerably injured. 20-30 of them sneaked up on my base, didn't even noticed where did they came from. Now my plan is thus: train the rest of my fresh recruits, send small squad of weakest+fastest for recon, find these rats and clean them off once and for all. I understand that there's no spawn unless game is imported, so clearing a camp should prevent further attacks. Do you have any leads?

[Berzerker Jay]

I'm honestly not even going to bother with it. My experience with it was pretty negative as far as the game is concerned, and I'll avoid the mechanism in the future unless and until it's fixed.

Currently I'm trying the only game I can conceive of being a little fun in 0.92.1, and so far it's just moderate entertainment and really nothing I haven't played out already since the Beta released. I'm just going with an urban trader, which kind of sucks since NPC shopping isn't working properly anyway.

Really I'm just waiting and hoping on 0.92.2.... Not even going to attempt to build another outpost like that again and probably won't play the finished version of Kenshi often at all if it includes this ridiculously game-busting feature. What's the point of Kenshi being a sandbox game if this feature corrals it into a one-dimensional game style? There goes the replay value.

[Sol Lignum]

Well, i guess it's kind of RTS-style thinking: If you build a base, someone going to try and bust it, unless you blow their base up - they will be coming Also logic of a kind can be followed here: they send one group that never returned. They send another, bigger group that never returns as well, and so on, untill units are depleted. Thing is though, there should be longer timers between attacks each time, due to preparations for larger attack, and at some point, such way should also deplete enemy population, because at some point they have to just assume an ultimate attack or abandon the idea alltogether... And send a messenger to inform you about how wrong they were, with apology gifts or something to prevent you from wiping them in return I believe everything mentioned is coming. I trust.

[Berzerker Jay]

If it worked at all like that, I'd love it. What I've observed is it starts full-on and then escalates from there. Only chance you've got is to use the limited squad space you have to train as fighters, and even then against fifty cannibals right away you have little chance of ever winning, and at that point you'll reach the maximum number of characters available long before you can withstand even more cannibals in the subsequent waves.

I'd expect the most realistic way to start it would be to have the faction send a scout or scouting party. They would lurk around the outskirts, possibly attack a vulnerable character or try to steal something. If allowed to return to their base, an attack will soon follow. If stopped, another scouting party will be sent. If they've sent repeated scouts and they never return, that attack force might be on its way anyway to investigate what's making the scouts disappear.

Definitely, too, casualties should be subtracted from the population.

It would be fun if I could prepare for it or have any fair chance, but instead it just drastically narrows the scope of the game and that's bad.

Honestly what draws me to Kenshi is its broad replay value, most of all. That replay value is out the window with the way assaults are currently structured. It's just the same thing over and over until you get bored and go play another game.

[Berzerker Jay]

Like, right now the game I'm currently playing is nothing new at all. If I didn't know there was a chance it might be improved in this regard with the next update or two, I'd be on to a different game. Instead I'm biding my time exploring for ways to improve the pathing system.

If the assaults were at all realistically triggered, and more reasonably escalated, they would be a lot more fun. There are very few ways to deal with it, though, and that limits the available tracks for a supposed sandbox game.

And honestly, how does Kenshi differ from any number of zombie survival games already out there if it stays like this? Not in enough ways to make the difference, in my opinion. It becomes another offering in a very tired format instead of something new and exciting. There are better games out there specifically designed for people who want to play tower defense against humanoids that want to eat them, and many of those offer cooperative and versus play online.

Kenshi lets you play out a story. Why limit it to the same repeating storyline?

[Dragontamer]

I built a mining camp just outside of Vain in Orkan's Pride so I can get a source of iron. I get a building down, some basic walls with a single gate, and I assign three laborers to work in it. A few days go by in game and I get warning of an assault on my mining camp. I look at the camp and survey the land around it... absolutely nothing.

I bring my 5 man combat team to pick up the iron plates and steel bars that are ready for transport and to my surprise... there are about 60 cannibals outside the only gate to my mining camp. This is a problem.

They're standing outside clumped together and I get my three laborers to man the turrets on my walls and I then realize that.. the cannibals, who I have a -100 diplomatic standing with, aren't enemies. My men on the turrets wont shoot them (Or maybe I just don't know how to order them to shoot first and ask questions later).

I send one of my combat guys in, my best man, set to block only in the hopes of turning the cannibals aggressive so the turrets will open fire. They ignore him. Completely. He's just standing there in a blob of 50 to 60 cannibals, chilling. He smacks one of them in the face and the whole blob turns aggressive, turrets start shooting them.

Then the worst part happened. The cannibals that got shot ran straight to the walls and just appeared right next to my laborers on the turrets, fighting them in melee. The rest of the blob, for whatever reason, begins running madly around the walls of my base. I figure maybe they're retreating?

Boy was I wrong. They ran to a specific point in my walls, and then ran through the walls. Even my own combat guys were able to clip through that same point in the wall!

I figure that many cannibals is overkill for an operation with a shack and an iron refinery. Once they got in the base, by clipping through a wall, my laborers were destined to know what it feels like to be BBQ.

This seems really broken. My camp in Hive territory gets attacked by beak things and gorillos all the damn time because those sneaky hivers can pick the gate, wander into my base, and I don't notice that the gate is open but at least there aren't 50+ beak things/gorillos running into the base!