Think of it like this, at this point, things will never be the same, en masse the Helots rose up and en masse they overthrew the hegemony. They will have to offer big concessions otherwise they will have to have you murdered and brow-beat your successor. But you will have done your job even in death. Want to know why? Because your people once they earn their freedom, will never go back to slavery, or accept second class citizenship.
That depends on how much of the power they hold in any “alliance” or even without it. Still I think the pervasive caste system and the firm entrenchment of slavery as an institution will prevent them from offering the sorts of “concessions” that my mc would find acceptable, both for society and for himself.
If the nobles, rightly or wrongly perceive themselves to be largely responsible for the defeat of the Hegemony (in “alliance” with us) then the concessions they’re going to offer will be very small indeed, if there are even going to be any at all.
“You all have to sleep at some point and when you do…”
You are the leader of the Helots. If they don’t help you, you can crush them all, Helots outnumber everyone. All that wonderful stuff. They need you at this point, and you need them to maintain stability and beat back foreign invasions.
I, too, consider @idonotlikeusernames as a sensible and intelligent person. And how his character’s views don’t equate his views (same is also true for me and my character).
I disagree. I’d say that not all nobles in the Hegemony are ideologically in favor of the Hegemony, first thing. Many of them probably just want to keep making money and having good harvests and gather political power and so on. I don’t think a change of government would affect every single one of them, and the rebellion could reach out to nobles if it promissed that they would thrive, even with the caste system abolished.
It’s not their ideological support of the Hegemony my character fears, in-game he knows that at least some of them are Laconnier supporters, it’s their ideological, religious and economic commitments to the caste system and the institution of slavery that he fears.
As we get beyond game 1, it will probably become increasingly clear to just about everyone, my mc, the nobles, Halassur and perhaps even the top brass of the Hegemony itself that the writing is on the wall for the Hegemony in its present form. What is far less clear is what should replace it and given the widespread indoctrination the writing is probably not yet on the wall for both the Xthonic Church and its caste system and slavery as an institution.
You would be correct, however my mc doesn’t want to merely change the government, particularly since, as a helot he’d be ineligible for high executive office then, he wants to change the entire, rotten system, which is a rather big difference.
It could, but in his case that would be a lie as my mc has absolutely no intentions of making sure of that. At the very minimum, in addition to the abolition of slave system, he’d demand at least some form of compensation for the unjustly coerced labour of himself and all other former helots, compensation that can only be given in the form of land and money taken from the priests and nobles.
To my mc the current “nobility” have raped and pillaged the land and its inhabitants for far too long now. Also, unlike Alexander II, my mc would not feel beholden to the former nobility in the slightest, therefore and again unlike in 1861 Russia the entire cost of the emancipation is to be borne by the nobles, possibly supplemented with whatever can be seized from the Church.
But to actually compensate “nobles” like the Keriatou (and the guy Kalt talks about) far above market value for allowing the emancipation of the helots would be far too topsy-turvy for my mc to even contemplate as it would be rewarding torturers, criminals and abusers.
Given how bankrupt the post-rebellion state is likely to be it also couldn’t even afford such compensation or loans to former helots in any case.
Here is some good former reading about how the Russian emancipation still betrayed the former serfs.
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Okay, @havenstone, here’s a report of the technical issues I found on my playthrough. Perhaps not incidentally, they were all in Chapter Two.
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Whenever I went out to recruit, the text read, “Do you want to target the helot camps or the yeomanry? But you’re determined to do whatever you can to win them back”, as if there was a third sentence missing from between the two.
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There was a moot at the end of winter where no clear majority formed, so the text read like this: “It’s impossible to precisely gauge the spirit of the band, but you think a majority are leaning toward How far you’ll be able to sway them is hard to say.”
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This one’s not an issue as much it’s a source of confusion. If on the first begging run to the helots the player does not ask for children to be fostered, that option is lost for the rest of the winter. It is, admittedly, less confusing if you send your MC to lead the first run, thanks to the clearly presented strategic/moral justifications for the choice. But should the player send someone else, you get the simplified options of “Good work” or “What about our children?” which in no way indicates that if you select “Good work”, you won’t be able to send children to be fostered later. And then when you do close that possibility off, you still see the text in the menu that says, “Try to get sympathetic helots to give us money or food – and perhaps to foster some of our children.”
Well, that’s it for now. Hope it helps.
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Thanks – super helpful!!
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@Havenstone I just played through this game and quite enjoyed it. I noticed a few inconsistencies though and thought I’d mention them, on the chance they haven’t already been reported:
After making my decision to fight in chapter 4, the game mentioned Zvad was reluctant, which is weird considering he died during a mule escort previously. Also at some point (during chapter two, I think) there was some mention of Elery laying a strategy or something, even though I let her be harrowed.
Towards the ends of the winter, my merchant contact (forget her name) contacted me to, if I understood correctly, complain about a raid in the Owlscap pass? This seem to be referring to the raid I chose not to conduct twice, instead electing to rob a temple and a noble estate.
Lastly, at the end of the game, when I had the choice to spend money, I chose to hire some informants, then took Suzanne’s suggestion and the game exclaimed that my scouts would be regularly meeting with my 0 spies. Did a variable not get assigned or am I not getting something here?
Aside from that I didn’t see anything that stuck out clearly as bugs. Will be interested in seeing where this story goes (likely my utter destruction at the hands of the Hegemony, but hey 
).
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Is anyone else having trouble getting in to the game? or is it just me?
I think that is because it’s October and Dropbox has changed their HTML rendering policies, as in they don’t want to do it anymore. All of this means that @Havenstone needs to change this game over to alternative, (Langley based) hosting sometime soon (hopefully).
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Don’t worry. As I’m aware @Havenstone has begun switching over to Dashingdon, so his gave should be hosted there.
Something similar happened to Ophaesia, but then it returned to normal a day later. Maybe it’s something like that.
Link updated!
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It’s back! Time to replay chapter 2 thirty more times!
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does anyone know if theirs a strategy guide or walkthrough.
What exactly are you having trouble with?
I can’t give advice for chapter 2 without knowing what your goal is. For example, I could tell you how to grow a pretty big band of rebels, or how to keep anarchy low enough to recruit the noble follower, but I’m pretty sure it’s not possible to do both.
I’ve been dabbling with a guide for my own use but certain things are randomized so it’s hard to lay out a week by week walkthrough.
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I’m interested in knowing how to grow the band as large as possible. It’s possibly not what I’d want to do in my “canon” playthrough, but I’m curious to try it out.
Also, I’ve understood that theurgy becomes an option at some point, but I haven’t looked into it yet. Can the MC learn theurgy anywhere in Chapters 1-4?
You can learn theurgy in chapter one, the only requirement is that your choose intellect as your biggest strength.
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For theurgy, you have to create a character with 2 intelligence. It will come up naturally in the game as long as you say intellect is your strongest stat.
In terms of growing your rebel band as much as possible, it’s best if you start by rebelling against the Harrowing and looting the town. I don’t think it matters if you kill the alastors or not, you are going to end up with a lot of anarchy anyway.
Guide is below. It’s long. I warned you!
[details=Chapter 2 guide - Surviving Winter]Week 1:
Start out by setting rations to full when you talk to Yeben. You need everyone as healthy as possible - sick people can’t work and they need mules to get anywhere, the lazy bastards.
Scout for mules (need 15 bandits)
Raid the tithe barn (30 bandits) - take Breden with you so he can calm people down when the priests curse you.
Scout for a new tithe barn (10 bandits)
Send everyone else to raid a yeomen’s barn
Week 2:
Going forward, I can’t give exact advice due to random variables. You may have enough food to feed everyone full rations, or you may be slightly short.
If you send Breden to beg for mules, you can get a couple the first time and get a tiny amount of grain (2 bushels, I think).
Send your MC to scout the tax collector mission, or meet with Alaine (you need both MC and Zvad to meet her). You need to scout the tax collector mission early, if you wait too long you might miss it. The tax procession can happen as early as week 7, so while you don’t HAVE to scout it right now, don’t wait too long. I don’t know if it could happen earlier, but week 7 is the earliest I’ve seen. Also, the way you gather the intel will affect how much you get paid. If you kidnap the tax collector’s family, you will make more money, otherwise you get paid about 200 coins per week as you try to fence the goods.
Send out scouts for missions, like the noble raid, alastor garrisons, and whatever else. If you’re playing a theurge, the religious faction will hate you even if you keep it secret, so you may as well rob them.
Get a head start on next week’s rations! You can beg from helots, or hunt. Depends on how many rebels you have to assign, but you can send a max of 50 to hunt, and send everyone else to recruit. Breden’s a good recruiter if you haven’t already used him. Be sure to target both helots and yeomen - yes the yeomen are pissed at you, but you want to tell your side of things, right?
Week 3:
You will be attacked by theurges at some point, and week 3 is the earliest I’ve been hit. You need to have mules assigned to the sick, and not off on missions elsewhere when the attack comes, otherwise kids can die and you take a massive hit to morale. Bad morale makes everything a pain in the ass.
You should have your scouts back from week 1, and you can hit a tithe barn and raid for mules. Do the mule raid first, and go yourself. The number of mules you’ll get is random, so cross your fingers. Then send as many people and mules as possible* to raid the tithe barn again, and remember to immediately scout another one. Scout another opportunity to raid mules if you can.
*Did you remember to assign some mules to the sick? Hopefully people are recovering, but put about 10 to the sick if you can. If you’ve already been attacked in week 3 before you had enough mules… well, rebellion is tough. Try again 
Send a bunch of rebels to recruit again, and remember to target both helots and yeomanry. Send Breden. Elery can substitute if you used Breden already.
Week 4:
What you need to do depends on how lucky you’ve been thus far. You won’t be able to raid a tithe barn this week, so if you’re short on food, hit a noble barn.
Do more recruiting if you can.
Do a raid if you have them available - remember to go yourself the first time as much as possible, since it sets the tone for the rest of your group on repeat missions. Usually the first time will be a “mission” kind of scene, and repeat attempts will just be a line or two of text telling you how it went. This goes for the raid in the Owlscap mountain pass, the alastor garrison, monastery raid, etc.
Week 5+:
You have to play it by ear at this point. Hit a tithe barn every other week, raid noble barns in off-weeks. Try to avoid raiding helot barns if you can, because you need one faction supporting you.
Do the noble raid when you have time for it, and go yourself. If you use theurgy, spend a vial here rather than cutting your hand so you don’t pass out. If you pass out, you don’t get to decide what happens to the nobles, and you will lose a ton of noble rep if they get killed. Maybe you care, maybe not
Once you rob the nobles, you should have enough money to pay back the yeomen you robbed earlier. DO THIS. It won’t totally recover your rep with them, but it mitigates the damage.
There is a second attack by theurges midwinter. I think the exact week is random. YOU NEED PLENTY OF MULES FOR THIS. Make sure the sick have enough. If you get caught without enough mules, your group will scatter, and you’ll have to wait a week for them to find you again. This means you will be screwed for a week, unable to raid or do much of anything.
Keep an eye out for the tax mission. It pays bank, don’t skip it! If you’re a theurge, use a vial here or else you may pass out.
Otherwise, always be recruiting. You may have to start raiding noble barns every week to make rations. Raid alastors as often as possible for more weapons.
Save some money to give away in chapter 3, which will get you a huge rep boost. 1000 gold should be fine (500 to helots and 500 to yeomen). You can save the rest or buy more mules, and it’s a good idea to have another 500-1000 in order to throw the spring party to boost morale.
[/details]
Give this a try and let me know how it works for you. Sometimes my luck is abysmal and I end up limping to the end of winter with terrible morale. But I’ve also had winters that ended up with 500 rebels, 8k in gold, and high spirits. Like I said, there is an element of randomness that can really kick your ass, but keep with it. It’s more rewarding to beat chapter 2 yourself than to have your deputy manage things, but YMMV.
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questions chapter 1: is it just a flavor option on what past rebellion you choose or does it effect anything
in the skip to chapter 3 bit it asks things you’ve done how do you do these
Slaughtered the nobles of House de Merre in their home by night.
Convinced Bleys the Telone and his family to join my band. We’re on reasonably good terms now.
what are the consequences of sabotaging the harrowers