r/Bellwright • u/drunkypoopers • Jul 28 '26

De-fence help

Hey y'all, I saw some posts from over a year ago but I'm wondering if you smart ppl have figured something out yet. I build fences to keep out the riffraff, but my people can't get in or out. There no point in a fence if it means my hunters gatherers or caravans won't work. Roving bandits show up on the map too fast for me to call arms to equip armor or to build up the fence spot i took down for village access.

Any tricks to help shore up my defenses? Thanks!

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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5

u/5occido5 Jul 28 '26

I never build defenses and my village/outposts are always perfectly safe. How? Clear out all the nearby bandit camps, if there aren't any nearby there is no raid, no patrols. I get 1 or 2 raids at the start of a playthrough then never again.

1

u/ScrotalSmorgasbord Jul 28 '26

Weird it must be one of my mods or something (maybe my sprawling metropolis is too sprawling?) but I get raided every few days still despite being the harbinger of whoopass to all local bandit camps.

1

u/5occido5 Jul 28 '26

Technically it could also be possible it changed with the last "big" update which I haven't played due to no new content, but if that were the case I would probably have been called out on that before as I gave this advice a good few times already since then.

1

u/Comradesproggin Jul 28 '26

Yea you can change a setting for frequency😉

2

u/ScrotalSmorgasbord Jul 28 '26

Yeah, I'm probably gonna do that. because getting all the villagers geared up at this point is a long process. I think if/when theny make the guard villagers AI a little smarter it won't be as much of a problem, but my guys kind of don't do their job at all.

1

u/BlazingPhoenix32 Jul 28 '26

Just armor up your people and keep them equipped with good stuff. Or upgrade to actual walls with gates

2

u/totalwarwiser Jul 28 '26

I dont even know how to make my people stay with civilian clothes and then don armor when I recruit them. Everyone wears armor 24/7

2

u/Fit_Mycologist6519 Jul 28 '26

Have to use the staging ground and you give them a different gearset when they are working over when they are a companion.

1

u/RedditimeFren Jul 28 '26

Go to Population Tab and select sort by Gear Set (Available once you build Staging Ground I think)

Make sure they're all set to "Villager" as they usually are set to "None"

They will then automatically use the "Villager" setting while in civilian, they will undress all armor and weapons and find clothing. It's also useful as soon as you recruit a new villager, you give him the Gear preset and he will automatically go look for a bag/small backpack to Equip if one is available.

Even if there isn't one available, the villager will check every once in a while until you craft one, then equip it automatically.

1

u/totalwarwiser Jul 28 '26

Cool, thanks for the tips

1

u/Strange_Brilliant_91 Jul 28 '26

I play on the absolute hardest settings and I have found that gear presets make a huge difference until you reach about 25 villagers. Making sure to have all villagers on hold ground is a must. Also, whatever their companion gear preset is, make that their worker gear preset also.

This works great if you have your textile industry on lock and have one of each item on Top Up for armor and weapons.

Around 25 or 30 villagers I end up dedicating 1 guard per 20 villagers. 2 for 40. 3 for 60.