As long as we are speculating, I’ve been wondering about the Xaos storms.
It seems likely to me that the Xaos wards cannot possibly have existed before the discovery of how to refine aetherial blood, since early theurges/wisards could not have maintained the wards with only their own blood. It seems more likely that the early uses for refining aetherial blood were to conquer and only later was the reason of maintaining the wards given.
In which case, either there were wide-spread ways to survive Xaos storms before the formation of the Hegemony, or Xaos storms have gotten worse since the formation of the Hegemony, or both.
If the Xaos storms have gotten worse since the formation of the Hegemony, is it merely coincidence? Does it have something to do with the Xaos storms being worst closest to the Hegemony’s Xaos wards?
I see that nothing comes into the world without purpose.
As the ancient text on theurgy mentioned, there is a purpose to all things. Could the Xaos storms or at least their getting worse be a result of the Hegemony’s actions? Which actions might cause such a thing? We do not know how aetherial blood is refined. What if it is the refining of aetherial blood that worsens Xaos storms? Then more and more aetherial blood would be needed to maintain Xaos wards while the Xaos storms keep getting worse the more aetherial blood is refined.
The Hegemony has already managed to bury the truth about theurgy/wisardry. It does not seem far-fetched to me for the Hegemony to have concealed the history of Xaos storms as well.
I had the same question about the xaos storms a while ago, Norilinde, and yeah, they’re apparently quite (well, relatively) recent, historically, appearing only since the development of theurgy. (Not sure whether that’s theurgy at all, or just refined-blood theurgy, but either way, they’re a new development.
@Havenstone the noble barn raid is still killing a ton of followers even will Elery leading. Everone but her died in this raid and I lost 11 before that:
The archer mechanics feel a little off at the moment. The current formula for it includes all adult followers, even members of the Whendward band who already know archery. It takes practicing around 25 archers every week in order to meet the highest check for it on the last week of winter. It is clearly meant to be a long term benefit like fostering the children, but it feels to long term. Fostering the kids breaks even at 3 or 4 weeks enough to where it matters in the winter, but right now archery practice doesn’t feel like it becomes relevant in the winter.
Shouldn’t you get at least one more weapon for being a noble? You have your family’s sword(s) but selling them doesn’t effect the arms stats at all.
I’d like be able to assign Radmar or Elery to lead the raids on the Alastor garrisons if I set people to attack them all winter.
Radmar can’t lead the noble raid if I allow him to be on the raid party. Happens with both “I was hopping you would join us” and “We aren’t going to be killing them” options.
The option to steal mules from yeomen and merchants are select-able if you chose to only target the Hegemony.
Children still got fostered despite the band not wanting to. It only happened for one group though. Elery lead the group and the band protested because we had fought Alastors.
Zvad will mention chatting with Elery in week eight (the week eight scene about the Keriatou) but she left with Radmar at the end of the week before.
If more people leave to join Radmar’s mutineers the week progression screen considers them dead and not mutineers. (Or at least doesn’t mention they ran off with him.)
Is this the link for latest posted version of the source code? I decided to look through the source code and so far as I can tell this only covers Chapters 1 and 2. I am willing to try to help bug hunting but it might not be very useful to look through an old version of the source code.
On a different note, I still like the scene where the newborn is named after the main character. At least in this version of the source code, it is dependent on morale or charisma. I had assumed the baby’s father was one of the sick that kept getting roasted by theurges, but apparently it was just based on morale. That is fair since having the sick incinerated was certainly devastating my morale.
Bear hunting is even more unreliable than I had thought. One week I broke my resolution to the contrary and tried sending 14 helots bear hunting. They found a bear, 2 helots died immediately and 1 died back at camp when the helots ran away. Maybe the main character could accompany the helots to devote the main character’s talents to the success of the hunt. It seems like overkill but the present success rate needs improvement in my opinion. Bear tamers would apparently do more for the band’s capabilities in battle than recruiting dozens of helots.
Probably shouldn’t send 14. Bear hunts roll a random number between 10 and 70; you have to beat it to get a bear, and beat it by 40 to get two bears. Obviously, you’re quite unlikely to beat it with only 14 helots.
@cascat07 Thank you for the correction. I had missed the obvious fact that bandits.txt was just Chapter 2.
@Dominic I try to send 60 to the helots, as many out of 50 as possible hunting rabbits, and what is left is what I have to work with. I looked at the bear-hunting code after seeing your comment, but I’m still inclined to say it is an unreliable use of personnel. I’d be willing to have the main character tag along to improve their performance, but otherwise it seems to me not worthwhile.
I’m still seeing Zvad disappear without dying or being listed as dead by the current end of the game. I’ll try to figure out what if anything is causing that.
Looks like…the problem there is that it judges whether or not Zvad is alive by a variable, ‘zvad.’ If greater than zero, alive; if zero, dead. It’s initialized at zero, set to 1 if you skip to the beginning of chapter 3. There are a few things that push it around in the bandits chapter, looks like based on who you tell him he’s suspicious of. But I’m guessing the problem is that it’s never set at a default of 1, so if you don’t go down a path that sets it somewhere else, it stays at 0, and by the last chapter, the game thinks he’s dead.
Then The bear hunt should be un accessible for people with only 43 warriors @Havenstone If there is no way I could kill the damn bear. It is a trap. And When you have this balanced you should add something only little pacifist groups could do. Something in Jesus or Gandhi style
This is my first time reading through ChoiceScript, so please be understanding. I think I may have found the issue with the bug described above.
*if templeraid > 1
Your outlaws
*if not(reassured)
try to
raid another Naos Xthonos, even deeper into the Rim than the one you previously robbed.
*if bred_here and (br_raid < week)
Do you want to send Breden
*if tempbred
again
*if not(tempbred)
this time
as the raid leader?
*choice
#Yes, ${xhis} gifts are well suited to this type of raid.
*set bred_t true
*gosub brraid
*set bred_lead +2
*goto t2raid
*if (me_raid < week) #No, I'll lead it myself.
*gosub meraid
*set templeme true
*goto t2raid
#No, I'll send another outlaw.
*goto t2raid
*label t2raid
*if (not(reassured) and not(bred_t)) and (cha < 2)
This time, unfortunately, the raid ends in disaster. Your demoralized raiding party is attacked by outraged townsfolk, and flee instead of fighting back. ${randill6} of them die.
The survivors bring back neither gold nor grain -- only a pervasive and devastating sense that your band has lost the favor of the Angels.
*gosub r6cas
*set cred_p -5
*set morale -30
*goto banditchoices
*if ((reassured) or (bred_t)) or (templeme and (cha > 1))
It goes smoothly.
*if not(tempbred)
*set bred_t false
*goto bredtcheer
*label bredtcheer
"Not a single casualty, ${kuria}!" one of them shouts up to you. "Not so much as a stubbed toe."
Breden appears in the midst of the crowd, grinning broadly, and tosses you a silver icon of an anchorite at prayer. $!{xhe} has a golden bowl tucked under the other arm. "The fence might need to melt some of this down before it can be sold again -- it's distinctive stuff. Shame to waste the craftmanship."
"They didn't fight you for it?"
"Well, the Ecclesiast was as unhappy as you'd expect. But we had a chat about whether the best way to show Angelic compassion truly is stealing from the poor to gild his altar. Seemed to take the wind out of him. And then when he cursed me and nothing happened..." Breden shrugs. "No one else in that Naos was about to stand up and stop us."
*label templewell
*set reassured true
*set morale +20
*set anarchy +1
*set loot +2600
*set loot +randbear
*set cred_p -30
*set tempbred true
*goto tempstandchoice
I think tempbred tracks whether Breden went on the first temple raid (tempbred true). I think templeraid tracks whether it is the first temple raid (templeraid = 0). I think bred_t tracks whether Breden is assigned to the new temple raid (bred_t true).
I think the bug is that there should be an if statement before *goto bredtcheer to check if Breden is assigned to the new temple raid. It does not make sense to me to have Breden talking about having a conversation at the temple during the raid if Breden was not assigned to the raid.
@Dominic Thank you for looking into the Zvad issue.
Between this week and the last, I feel like it has gotten even more difficult to keep my followers alive and having them like me at the same time. (I noticed because the child no longer gets my name, even though I’m keeping the death toll relatively low. Compared to my first few attempts, anyway. Today I got it down from 80 to 56.)
I would very much like to avoid stealing from nobles and merchants, but that does not really work out. I feel like there is no longer a feasible method of leading the rebellion I wanted to lead. I’m forced to abandon all my principles just to keep my people alive. Is that intentional?
If you want not steal nobles and being low anarchy the only way is starting a low anarchy revolution without kids and only with warriors you could make it without losing anyone really easy. However doing a high anarchy plaza event and having an army of kids mean violence and famine.
It’s probably at least partly intentional right @Havenstone? So we’ll need to offer the groups we’ve inadvertently offended some serious concessions to get them back on board.
Like I said the playthrough that I found easiest to do, not alienating the nobles and the priests is the one my character least wants to do.
Even so those first 3-4 weeks are stupidly luck based, one wrong dice roll and you’re basically toast.
And XoR doesn’t have the save feature so you have to replay everything when it happens, grr.
I think Mara will do alright so long as she personally manages to escape and lets most of her followers trickle back to the surrounding Helot camps and yeoman smallholdings first.
I AM GANDHI I NOT FIGHT I WILL BE LEGIONS MARCHING IN PEACE UNTIL MY FINALVICTORY… When I will start the forced Labour camps… Die HELOTS…
Edit: as @idonotlikeusernames says I will runaway and disguise my band of only 43 people between yeomans and helots.
My impression of this version of the bandit chapter is: If you don’t want to balance the entire game around one-week-at-a-time, it’s probably best to go back to the old version. For example, Breden gets Leadership stat at a frighteningly-accelerated rate if you use him every week (and he only gets +3 leadership for becoming the high priest of the Inner Voice!). Likewise, someone devoted to raising hell can cause quite a bit of anarchy week by week until the Shayard Rim is set afire.
Also, this version is difficult and, worse, random; it goes strongly against CoG best practices. The theurge attacks come to mind; until you hit a breakpoint in mules, the sick are at the mercy of the RNG. So essentially, survival amounts to a lot of restarting, and that is simply not fun. It’s a slog-through until you come out with a surviving band, and that band usually comes out with thousands of drachems without even causing serious anarchy (and it isn’t hard to survive on tithe barns and rabbit if you have a stolen mule train).
Evil Gandhi has no problems and has too much food and money!! For once evil Gandhi has a great advantage…
