She’s not going to define them yet. In her mind it’s simple- acknowledge her authority and you will become a brother/sister. Refuse to acknowledge it and you and your family get the Harrower.
I think her main hang-up in a decentralized League bound together by a monarchy is ultimately that as long as their exists a common enemy the League will endure. The monarchy aspect of it will ensure that in Shayard your descendants will rule, but it’s just too flimsy for her to consider. Not that she’s against it fully- but to her it seems too limited for what she wants to achieve.
She’ll marry for political advantage, probably a male since she leans both ways. But take a lover in private. She won’t do so until she has an heir and a spare and who knows, by then they might like each other.
The main thing with my MC is that she understands the principle of “Chaos is a ladder” but for her, it’s “Chaos is a ladder for the person who has the ability to end it.”
In her mind someone has to come out of this with a clear mandate to stabilize the nation, restore law and order, promote meritocracy, and reform the state.
She’s not fully committed to being a Prime Minister type figure, if forming a new state is what will do it then that’s what she’ll do. But, overall in her mind the seizure of the state’s legitimacy and reforming it with those goals in mind will do.
@Havenstone I think Breden always shows up as one of the fallen rebels in the Stats menu because in the startup the variable “breden” is set to 0. And in the choicescript menu the check for her being deceased is breden < 1 or breden = 5.
Certain factions of Neres that might ally with Halassur would be the potential 5th column, yes.
I think Caroline is going to see the League as an alliance system between independent Nation states rather than a new continental government. She’s trying to get the priesthood and aristocracy on side as far as setting up a new government for Shayard and is going to try to do the same thing in the other archonties, especially Erezza.
At the moment, she only has the haziest notions of the Leaguers vs the Laconniers so not sure which way she’ll go on that one. She’s a nationalist but not chauvinist and she sees Halassur as a big threat so those might be hangups for her with the Laconniers. 400 years was the last time a de Syrnon reigned, so while the notion of a restoration pleases her romantic side, she ultimately wants a Shayard ruled by Shayardenes whether a de Syrnon is involved or not. She likes the idea of favoring the culture of the nobles that didn’t assimilate and favoring Shayarin as an official language, but autarchy, revanchist attempts to regain territory they had 400 years ago and not learning Koine or Karagon philosophy is a bit extreme in her mind.
It’s going to depend on whether Horion’s description of the Laconniers was accurate of the typical member of the faction or a caricature of his opponents. Caroline won’t know that until the Season chapter.
@Havenstone who is Jev actually attracted to? Your RO list says cetero, which implies attraction to other enbies, but the text says ‘I’d enjoy being courted–but by someone who truly understands. Someone who’s also most comfortable outside the forms people think natural for them.’, which could also include binary trans people, for example. Is it just anyone with the notbinary variable (which isn’t exactly accurate for certain trans ppl but I digress, it’s fine for a variable name), or specific values thereof?
Well, after doing several runs through the demo, it seems that in Book 2, Intellect builds will be the builds for the thinking man. Fun paths to get the “Healer” achievement in particular.
Just like in Book 1, which I guess is why it took the community over 4 years to figure out how to fully minmax Intellect runs!
“Obi Wan” de Firiac: Only a ̶S̶i̶t̶h̶ Xaos-lover deals in absolutes!
Didn’t the Hapsburgs demonstrate how a single family/dynasty could plausibly hold the throne of a decentralized/limited monarchy for centuries?
If the League’s non-Shayard member states start pushing for HRE-inspired elective monarchy (rather than continuing to follow the “Warcraft Alliance-inspired hereditary monarchy” approach that my de Syrnon MC favors), then my MC will adapt accordingly by doing as the Hapsburgs did:
1- “Be good chums with the electors” (aka from MC’s POV, wheeling, dealing, and marriage alliances)
2- “Lots of bribes”
Your MC marrying the Emperor of Halassur’s male relative (in conjunction with the Emperor marrying a female aristo representative of your koinon) could serve as both a marriage truce (and hostage swap) that could buy the Hegemony another couple decades of peace/ceasefire. (while also potentially skipping the need to comply with Halassur’s demands to surrender Erezzan land)
(Though you’ll have to be on the lookout for the Hegemony subfaction that deliberately (and previously) restarted the war with Halassur for its own profit and agenda)
Or if not Halassur, does your preferred definition of “political advantage” instead lean more towards…
A. Shoring up relationships with the Hegemony’s existing archonties,
B. Or coaxing previously independent factions (like Sojourn) into joining your reformed Hegemony as new archonties?
1- Which religious path does Caroline favor: Eclect or Inner Voice? (I’d recommend Eclect, if you want to prevent radical nationalists from using Inner Voice as their excuse for violently opposing your koinon)
2- In general, which stat specialization (or combo) do you think will be most helpful for achieving Caroline’s goals?
3- And will Caroline’s preferred League explicitly be a Holy League? (or remain secular/open-ended, if she wishes to accommodate the atheistic Nyrs)
4- And on a minor note, I’m curious if Nyryal’s Archimandrite (and corresponding “priesthood”) are all secretly atheistic all along, just like their countrymen?
(or if they instead truly represent Nyryal’s genuine Devout minority)
Your thoughts on the topic?
Since the best lies have elements of truth, a mix of both of your suggested options sounds like a reasonable third option to me.
I wonder, do Karagond had any natural advantages over the other provinces? With the exception of their industries and maybe the commercial canals though I doubt that will be enough ( due to centuries of extracted resources being funneled there), because when most of the Hegemony’s mismanagement policies are abolished after a successful cosmo rebellion, and the other provinces finally had a chance of developing themselves, I do think there’s a high chance that parts of Karagond will become “rust belts” after their industries becoming less competitive to the other regions.
She doesn’t want an independent Halassur, for her to cut down on Harrowing they must be subjugated and forced to accept her Hegemony.
For her, the ideal marriage would be to a prominent family in the Hegemony.
The reason why she’s against that whole set up you mentioned is that ultimately- it’s ceding control to a bunch of aristos who will be effectively their own masters in their land.
She wants a unitary model with a bureaucracy that’s fully answerable to her and her laws. She doesn’t want to have to deal with a dozen petty-Kings and Princes. To her that’s just anarchy and not even a progressive form of government. A Confederation is acceptable as a bare minimum if it means that she can secure one or two of the former Archonties as her personal demense. But, yeah it just circles back to the fact that she is a firm believer that the only way to reform the Hegemony in ways she want will force her to seize power and rule as an autocrat.
Eclect as proclaimed by Linos. Since she’s an INT 2 CHA 1, need the support of the priests themselves. The merchants were the targets of much raiding in the winter and the generous gifts of gold from Caroline have helped the priests realize the Angels are on her side.
She thinks the only reason Shayard is subservient is Theurgy so the development of their own magic users is her biggest priority. Primary INT, and secondary CHA character
Probably, she’s a bit of a zealot, that’s a big part of why Halassur is worse than Karagon in her mind. The League will probably be Karagon, Shayard, Whendry, and Erezza with the League making separate arrangements with the Apanthropoi and Neres (she doesn’t want to be hostile towards them as long as they didn’t align with Halassur).
I’m curious about that as well. Not a lot of thoughts on that as yet.
What faction do you guys think will be more favourable to a devout and compassionate aristo MC, provided he is neutral on the cosmo-homelander axis, the Leaguers or Laconniers? It seems to me like the Leaguers are the more open-minded faction of the two.
I also feel they would appeal more to a high INT character, given what we know of Horion. Then again, the Leaguer RO Teren was mentioned by Havenport to value ruthlessness, so there is also that… could come in contrast to the compassionate Eclect MC.
Sort of an odd question but how utterly broken will my save be if I were to port it into the game when I have the option. To be specific I had a real hard time deciding if I wanted Simon or Kalt for my rebellion, before deciding, why choose? I got Simon legitimately before adding Kalt via file editing, It worked quite well, I in fact quite enjoyed it, but I imagine it might have some issues for this new game, particularly if one of these characters were to show up.
It is gonna have issues in the future games for sure. Because one of K and S that doesn’t join your rebellion will go on to lead a revolt of their own against the Hegemony.
And which chosen religious path validates the mandate that MC has in mind? (and if Xthonist, Eclect or Inner Voice?)
Forcing Halassur to co-exist with our respective post-Hegemony new world orders (e.g. @idonotlikeusernames 's suggested “cold war”) is one thing, but to outright subjugate Halassur?
I thought Havie already went out of his way (on the Uprising thread) to previously mention how Halassur’s leadership will be impossible for our MCs to depose; so what’s changed (since Havie last spoke on the topic)?
What if she married a Leilatou? (more specifically, Teren)
On the Uprising thread, it was clarified that the Leaguers are divided on pursuing oligarchic vs. (more) democratic models of governance.
For the sake of my argument, I’m going to be optimistic by tentatively assuming that Teren represents the “true democracy” subfaction (thus potentially being the perfect lieutenant to support your MC’s “experimental democracy project”).
Or would MC instead prefer to form a marriage alliance with a Hegemony-aligned family outside of Shayard’s borders?
Shayard + ?
(I’m tentatively assuming that your MC at least wants to dominate Shayard, and then pick another Archonty afterwards. Which second ex-Archonty will complete MC’s collection?)
Did Caroline agree with Alaine’s (eventual) demands to stop the winter raiding (thus opening the door for later reconciliation/bridge rebuilding), or did Caroline instead double down on antagonizing the merchants?
My current assumption is “double down”, since I think it would be very interesting to explore the rivalry between “old money” (aka Caroline and her preferred community of fellow hereditary aristos) vs. “new money” (aka the Syntechnia and their community of fellow bourgeoisie).
(Assuming that Caroline’s envisioned koinon is primarily led by the Eclect and a “Security Council Apella”)
What is Caroline’s preferred division of power between the Eclect and the koinon’s (future) Security Council Apella (if applicable)?
What is Caroline’s (current) preferred answer on the “post-Hegemony aether gathering policy” poll? (that I posted a while ago)
That’s cool. My female Homelander aristo, Carmilla Sanguinar, in comparison, is primarily COM/secondary CHA (though I intend to have Carmilla mirror most of Caroline’s chosen policies/alliances, I think a key difference between Carmilla and Caroline is that Carmilla is more inclined towards gradually dropping her arrogant aristo worldview in favor of becoming a pragmatic antiheroine who’s grown fiercely protective of the Rim followers she led in Game 1).
Quite the (mostly) Xthonic Holy League you’ve assembled here, though I’m curious to find out how Caroline will address Whendry’s “Forgotten Gods” pagan worship. (especially since you described Caroline as a bit of a Xthonist zealot)
If Caroline’s koinon is NATO (mutual military defense), would this make her imagined Shayard-Apanthropoi-Nere arrangement the (economic union only) EU? (in comparison)
Or did you instead have a different analogy in mind?
And based on what Caroline understands of Sojourn (thus far from the G2 demo), does she already have high hopes for Sojourn one day joining her koinon? (or is Sojourn more likely to be yet another “separate arrangement” buddy faction)
In general, I find it very interesting that Game 2 finds ways to reward “centrism”. (after all the effort Game 1 MCs made to achieve "75%+ recruitment bonuses).
Again, I have high hopes that a Devout/Skeptic centrist MC will be the perfect mediator to broker peace between Shayardene Xthonists and Nereish Skeptics!
Hi Joel, I was so ecstatic to hear that one of the best Choice of Games series finally reach the playtesting stage for Game 2 that I dived right into it to get a good understanding of what the progression of the story would be and the feel you would be going for in the second instalment and I was hoping to give some feedback and question regarding what is currently achievable in the playtest.
So far I’ve played the 2 Char/ 1 Int MC and 2 Int/ 1 Char about twice each and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. As a person who’s played Game 1, it’s a great change of pace with Chapter 4 feeling like a slightly more linear, slower and definitely less management-heavy Chapter after the winter survival and army scenario in the last game, so the flow of the story IMO has been great. I didn’t encounter any bugs while playtesting but to be frank, I’ve mostly been choosing a similar path of sheltering, meeting Wolfbait/Ulbern and going to the Vigil, recruiting Cerlotta, and helping Herne with Sojourn and his unlikely multicultural band which has led me to have a great appreciation for the time and effort you put into how the different dialogue options and interaction of cultures play out on the personal level in the Xaos-lands. I’m hoping to meet the nomads or to try to go north in my next playtest to see how you’ve fleshed that out.
One question I have right now is what is actually achievable in the Achievements of the current playtest as I’ve been racking my brain over what scenarios would allow for the Healer of Xaos, Hospitality Proven, A Word of Mercy and Scapegoat as I can guess or have achieved the rest of the achievements. In particular, the option with Veorn and his crab arm seems to be the only choice I’ve come across to attempt the Healer of Xaos achievement yet there doesn’t seem to be any way to change the outcome. Furthermore, the other three achievements seem a bit unclear on the settlement in question in which we can save/sacrifice someone and which one we need to build rapport with as most have been quite welcoming, even if sometimes that include cannibals trying to eat you.
In any case, playing on the windows version hasn’t given me any issues as of yet but I hope to continue trying everything to report any issues and give you a more holistic feel of how the story feels for an average player. Thanks for all your hardwork!
She went for Eclect, frankly it’s probably my Catholic upbringing but the urge to light reformists on fire is strong. This is mostly sarcastic but I must acknowledge the meme that the Reformers ruined everything.
She’s not looking to lead Halassur, she’s looking to conquer them and turn them into a new Province. There’s a difference. “There is no such thing as a mountain too high. There is no too deep a sea.”
She might consider it if they bend the knee to her. They’ll be a good relationship to cultivate in order to use their expertise in administering Shayard. But, overall she has a deep disdain for the powerful Aristo clans.
She’ll swallow this disdain if they submit, but she’ll probably look for opportunities to liquidate them and replace them with loyalists developed from her army and rebellion.
This is her minimum requirement, but a Confederation or League is settling for her. It means she’s utterly failed in her ambitions. Her whole goal is to take over the Hegemony and then utilize the momentum shift to conquer as Hera did. The main thing she plans on doing as well as conquer is do all those reforms and nation-building parallel to the conquering.
How would you see such “peace”? I think the most extreme option possible for XoR world would be just an accepted coexistence, like where in our world where religious people doesn’t kill atheists(at least in most regions of the world) and vice versa, but there’s still ambivalent/negative view upon style of life from one side to opposite.
