Ah, I feel like the increases in ruthlessness and especially paranoia should be a gradual scale for my mc to progress along. So he’s actually a bit too trusting and forgiving still in the first installment, letting Zvad (and Sybla) go and Breden only getting on the little list after their stubborn insubordination actually shanked the preparations for combat and cost a significant amount of lives and resources.
True, that is the most fun, except you don’t need to be biased towards combat for it to work.
Ah, but then that versatility is one of the main strengths of this game.
The disadvantage, for me at least is that without extensive modding (which might cause all sorts of weirdness and potentially not make saves work on import) choosing Simon/Suzanne renders the mc “canonically” bisexual. Which is a minor personal annoyance of mine.