Choice of Rebels: Uprising — Lead the revolt against a bloodthirsty empire!

[P_Tigras]

@Bluebirb

My experience as a child was basically being constantly sad for whatever meat was being served for dinner, whichever kid was getting picked on at recess, whatever roadkill we drove by. And then when I expressed this I was either made fun of or told I was being naive.

It sounds like you have high empathy. That’s generally a positive thing unless others are able to use it against you. High empathy people care a great deal about the happiness of those around them, but caring about the happiness of someone out to take advantage of you like a car salesman can work against you.

I guess my question is whether compassion is EVER actually bad.

When it motivates you to do something that enables self-destructive behavior and/or reinforces a psychology of dependence. There is an old Confucian saying: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for life.” If the root cause (lack of marketable skills, drug addiction, mental illness, etc…) isn’t addressed, and you feed him long enough that it turns into an expectation, then getting him to stand upon his own two feet will be harder, not easier, because he’s become dependent upon your generosity and has even less motivation to improve his situation then he did before. Furthermore his gratitude for all your help will pale in comparison to his anger at your refusal to bear the burden of supporting him for the rest of his life.

So it’s not that compassion is bad per say, it’s more an issue of how that compassion causes you to respond. Buying a barefoot homeless person a new pair of shoes will do no good if they sell them for drugs an hour later. And feeding someone every day can foster dependence and create a sense of entitlement unless the root cause of that hunger is also addressed. A bit of insight is needed to go along with that compassion so that the limited amount of help you are able to provide actually makes a meaningful difference.

[Laguz]

@P_Tigras

Buying a barefoot homeless person a new pair of shoes will do no good if they sell them for drugs an hour later.

Does it matter? You’ve obviously not addressed their most pressing need: the addiction.

One of the main reasons I hear “don’t give money to the homeless” is “they’ll spend them on drugs”. A surprisingly cruel excuse: even if they did, that is obviously what matters to them most in that moment. You’re not checking them into rehab. You can’t judge.

@P_Tigras

It sounds like you have high empathy.

Also sounds like you possibly could have autism. Hyper or hypoempathy is often a sign of it (I will not say symptom, it isn’t a disease).

[P_Tigras]

@Laguz

@P_Tigras

Buying a barefoot homeless person a new pair of shoes will do no good if they sell them for drugs an hour later.

Does it matter? You’ve obviously not addressed their most pressing need: the addiction.

Yup.

One of the main reasons I hear “don’t give money to the homeless” is “they’ll spend them on drugs”. A surprisingly cruel excuse: even if they did, that is obviously what matters to them most in that moment. You’re not checking them into rehab. You can’t judge.

Wagging your finger at them for their perceived failures isn’t going to help them, but neither is enabling an addiction, and those looking for drug money certainly aren’t going to level with you when they ask for money. Buying them a sandwich may not be a long term solution, but it’s not going to be repurposed towards feeding an addiction the way cash or things that are easily resellable all too often are, and it will ease their stomach rumblings long enough for you to put them in a touch with an organization able to help them further, assuming they’re willing.

The real issue here is that most people who’d like to help have limited resources, and things like addiction can turn into a singularity that easily sucks up all of the resources dedicated as those resources get misdirected towards enabling an addiction. Directing resources to where they’ll do the most good is thus important when misdirected resources can result in fewer people getting the help they need.

[Eiwynn]

This is a gentle reminder to please keep conversations directed at the topic at hand; the last few posts seem to be going far off topic here.

Thanks everyone.

[HughMyronBrough]

Never mind guys, I figured it out again, how to win as a 2COM/1CHA Inner Voice build while keeping all lieutenants!

I actually did very few major raids, just 1 Noble Estate and 1 Owlscap (towards the end). At the start of the Winter, I sold a mule each week to get food (and of course, brutalized the yeomen to make up the difference!) This is a different strategy than I vaguely remember using a year back, which only goes to show that there’s more than one way to optimally handle the winter!

I did 3 Breden recruitment runs and that was it. Even with Inner Voice, I was able to override her.

I finished Winter with 249 adult rebels and 450 traps, and was able to arm everyone.

I started the Act 4 Battle with 449 adult rebels (after the Brecklanders showed up), all of them armed.

[Havenstone]

@Bluebirb

are there any Seracca that choose to focus on insect attributes?

As @Laguz notes, for most desirable attributes, there’s a relevant mammal to imitate that requires less thoroughgoing change.

@WinterHawk

Do the clans just kind of burn some incense and form a circle while their buddy cuts themselves and becomes a bear or what?

No, Changes don’t require the whole clan to be present. It takes a long time to transform yourself into a bear, and much of it is done on your own. The mentor(s) of a Seracca will generally pop round often enough to make sure things are progressing well and provide guidance for the next few steps, but especially after childhood, they won’t be around for every single Change. Life’s too short, even when you’re an Abhuman.

@WinterHawk

So since abhumans, humans, and animals are all immaterial spirits, where did the spirits come from?

Created by the Nagyeh (or Theoi), the gods of the Abhumans, who are themselves spirits without material form.

@WinterHawk

Also what happens when a spirit “loses” its body during change? Does it just find a new one or wander around all confused asking itself “who am I”? Also what happens to the spirit when its body dies normally?

The Seracca, unlike the Karagonds or Halassurqs, believe in ghosts, possession, and a range of disembodied spirits both friendly and hostile.

@WinterHawk

But I wanna know what happens when Max decides he wants to change a little too much all at once.

The Wild Rumpus starts.

@idonotlikeusernames

Was this article written by an acquaintance of yours perchance @Havenstone ?

No, I don’t know him, and from his other Atlantic pieces I know he’s much more conservative than me. But on this point I share a lot of his concerns.

@Bluebirb

Is compassion ever inherently bad?

I personally don’t think so – but I also think that the great compassion-traditions of Buddhism and Christianity are right that thoroughgoing compassion entails a pretty radical commitment to nonviolence and self-sacrifice, and thus a refusal of the most direct ways to end certain kinds of suffering. Reasonable people can see these things as inherently bad. My social media feeds are full of people arguing that we should forgo or severely limit our compassion for various categories of people in the name of (group or individual) self-protection or more efficient reductions in overall suffering.

Compassion also leads to challenges to the social order, which is always based on categorising certain groups of people as undeserving of compassion. And if your challenge is forceful enough to topple that social order, you may find that there are goods of order, even oppressive orders (as I saw in Afghanistan), which you miss when they’re gone.

[HughMyronBrough]

@HughMyronBrough

Never mind guys, I figured it out again, how to win as a 2COM/1CHA Inner Voice build while keeping all lieutenants!

I actually did very few major raids…

I want to add that I’ve heard of another school of thought on this. I read some people arguing in the other thread that 2COM builds should be very aggressive on raiding during the winter (unlike my strategy, which is very conservative). This makes some sense, because raiding is certainly one of 2COM’s comparative advantages! Then again, another advantage it has is exploiting traps, hahaha.

[Rashad]

Long time lurker of this thread, first time posting here.

First, love the game, can’t express this enough. By far my favorite IF game.

Now, a couple requests/bugs that have been annoying me for a while.

First, a bug: after the tax collector raid, the text mentions multiple times when small amounts of loot are fenced off, except your actual wealth doesn’t seem to increase accordingly. Relatedly, this gradual fencing seems to completely stop after the winter, making me wonder: what happens to the rest of the loot? Is it just completely forgotten about after the end of the winter?

Second, in ch3, if you choose to keep Horion and his priest hostage without seeking a ransom, they are never mentioned again in the text. Do they die? Do you eventually let them go? It’s like they vanish from the universe.

Third, in ch4, it’s possible to reduce the main force attacking you to 0 troops. It took me a good five minutes to figure out how that made any sense considering you still get more than a hundred troops who show up at the final battle, because they were in the flanking forces. If it could be made clearer in the text that you’ve only destroyed one force and that there are still others that haven’t yet been destroyed, as it’s easy to lose track of how many flanking forces there are, it would be great.

Now, for some questions.

When you fence Simon’s sword, in all future scenes he’s specifically described as not having a sword- for example in the Hector ambush scene he uses a spear, and the MC makes a note of not referring to him as a blademaster. While I get that his family sword has significance to him, why is it that he abandons the weapon he’s trained with for one he’s less familiar with even though it’s mentioned earlier in the text that the band has already captured several perfectly functional swords?

Does the deputy you chose have an impact of what your band does while you’re gone? AKA will they go against your choices to not target particular groups of people? If so, how do you know what some of the less explored characters, people like Diacon Edward are going to do?

This has probably been answered, but I can’t find it. Will we ever see Zvaad again if he leaves?

Was it ever intended that raiding the yeomanry has basically no consequences? It costs the equivalent of 9 mules to max out your relationship with them after 5 or 6 raids, during which you get at least 20, and up to 35, plus lots of free food. The fact that you raided them never comes back to haunt you because they’ll love you by ch4, and you’ll never lose any followers doing it. Compared to the risk/reward of raiding everyone else, the minmaxer in me tells me that the yeomanry are the best long-term targets. I can’t decide if this is a deliberate choice, to show how easy it is to abuse the poor with them having no idea that you’re doing it, or if it just ended up this way through happenstance.

I had a million lore questions too, but basically all of them were answered by the wiki and search feature.

Very excited about the next game in the series, and can’t wait for the open beta.

[Laguz]

@Rashad

for example in the Hector ambush scene he uses a spear, and the MC makes a note of not referring to him as a blademaster. While I get that his family sword has significance to him, why is it that he abandons the weapon he’s trained with for one he’s less familiar with even though it’s mentioned earlier in the text that the band has already captured several perfectly functional swords?

Reach. Also horses running into swords sucks ass while horses running into spears is more likely if you set a defensive formation. A well-made sword, one that you’ve trained in for most of your life works differently from a crude captured sword you just picked up. It doesn’t feel like an extension of yourself half as much.

[Havenstone]

@Rashad, thanks so much for the encouragement and the bug catches! I’ll send an update to CoG soon that restores ransomless hostage Horion to the universe, gives you cash for your fencing, and refers on the flanking force wherever you’re told how many are left in the main force.

@Rashad

what happens to the rest of the loot? Is it just completely forgotten about after the end of the winter?

You end up fencing pretty much everything that’s fenceable during the winter, with diminishing weekly returns. The rest remains unfortunately stuck, and will thus not be of use to your rebellion.

@Laguz is right about Simon’s spear use.

@Rashad

how do you know what some of the less explored characters, people like Diacon Edward are going to do?

You don’t. You can probably guess how many of the others will lead (and yes, they will make their own decisions in your absence, not just follow your policies blindly). But if you don’t trust the ones you know well like Radmar or Breden, your only other choice is to gamble on someone you don’t know well, from the relatively small list of people respected enough to make a credible leader.

@Rashad

Will we ever see Zvad again if he leaves?

I don’t remember if I have answered that one before. But the answer is “Probably.”

@Rashad

Was it ever intended that raiding the yeomanry has basically no consequences?

Yes–I think exploiting the peasantry is a pretty common tactic for early stage rebellions, and at first can usually be done with limited lasting consequence. (Unless your base of operations is actually in villages, rather than out in the jungle/hills/wild.) One hard winter of questionable decisions won’t wreck your relationship with the natural support base of a revolt.

Look forward to having you on the beta!

[Rashad]

I appreciate the answers. In case I wasn’t clear, the confusing bit of text appears for me when I choose not to set the forest on fire and instead skirmish with the enemy, thus killing off everyone in the main troop; my MC’d better be able to brag about that later btw.
And with the Simon thing, I only asked because when giving him command of the mule train in the ch3 ambush, whether or not he’s called a blademaster depends on you having taken away his sword or not, making me wonder if he’d given up swordsmanship entirely. Point taken with the spear thing though.

[Angrodus_Stormsong]

Assuming the eastern wards remained intact along with the infrastructure in Erraziano, and that initial negotiations with Halassurq failed or we do not have the chance to negotiate before they invade, what would it take for them to accept a white peace and a non-aggression pact?

[Havenstone]

Great question–but we’re years away from the point where I will answer any part of it.

[poison_mara]

I am imaging you petting a white cat and villain laughing while writing that post Havie lol

[Laguz]

@Havenstone

but we’re years away from the point where I will answer any part of it.

Tell me, Havie, what is it like to live without shame of any kind?

[Tornam]

Long time lurker, really really like this one.

So far I always have the most fune with a ruthle, devout, cosmipoliton playthrough. For longevity would that be a good rebellion? I would be focusing a lot on the devout + ruthless class politics to get supporters.

[Laguz]

Everything will have its upsides and downsides in the long run. Besides, at current pace you’ll be waiting about another decade to see the endgame.

[Ramidel]

Cosmo is almost certainly what you want if you want to make a new Hegemony. If you want to ally with Halassur, hold Old Shayard and flip off the rest of the lands, go Homelander.

Skeptic is going to have more options in the future - it’ll help a lot with Nyr. Devout’s always going to be pretty useful in both Karagon proper and Shayard, though.

Ruthlessness and Compassion, no idea. I know that Compassion’s a trace more useful in Book 1.

[highsis]

What’s the other two?

[Laguz]

They haven’t been online in two years. Probably not best to ask them now. You probably won’t get an answer.