I would have a hard time seeing cosmopilitan institutions survive without religious justification.
I go devout Eclect every time. It’s the only unifier of both class and nationality.
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From a gameplay perspective, Eclect is generally superior because it grants substantial bonuses to troop numbers and band control without any attribute investment in Chapter 1. That said, Inner Voice is a bit stronger on 2CHA builds (which don’t need the extra band control, and appreciate the extra solders.)
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@Havenstone sorry if you’ve already answered it before, but, in Rim Square, the population percentages seem to lean heavily towards helots, with yeoman farmers coming in as a (distant?) second. I was wondering how much those numbers are representative of the rest of Shayard. Is it difficult to find towns where smallholders are the largest share of the population, and there are only a few helots to be seen?
Are there any architecture pearls in Hegemony (besides Thaumatarch Palace)? Maybe something like Notre Dame cathedral but dedicated to Xthonos instead?
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You can also do Inner Voice with Breden on a 1CHA build, though it requires more careful leadership management.
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It’s almost inevitable that there are, and it’s not just the Thaumatarch who has a palace, even if the others don’t float.
Of course in some provinces, poor Nyr, the nicest of them were destroyed by the Thaumatarchy.
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Also, other question. Imagine you’re playing 2INT noble mc and you choosed to work with Calea in Game 1. Will there be possibility to expose your affairs with her to public? Maybe in order to sow chaos in loyalists nobles ranks?
You don’t have to have 2INT, you just can also indicate a sexual interest in men and send a letter to Hector.
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Well guys, with the help of the XoR Discord, I’ve set a new record for worst rebellion ever! Go 2COM/1INT Ruthless/Devout/Homelander Helot on Uprising Start. You need to proc the Desertion scene where you order Alira to also kill the younglings (which she will accept if you are 2CHA or Eclect). You get to that point by keeping morale as crappy as possible in the Winter. You do that by raiding Yeomen and Helots every week.
And at the end…5 lieutenants dead, and the entire rebellion reduced to 1 adult and 3 children. But I look on the bright side…the Rim Square Traitor is probably dead!
This will probably be the last “failrun” I post, since there’s not much left to explore. Though one thing you can do is play a nonviolent run in the Winter and then defeat the Archon, which is possible because 2CHA is so powerful.
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So it’s been over a year since I’ve played this game, and about that long since I was active on the forum, and now that I’ve revisited both all I can say is wow.
@Havenstone, I really just wanted to pop in again to say thank you for creating such a unique experience that’s sparked so much thought and imagination for me.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have to binge on posts here until I start to re-establish my grip on what the hell is going on with this incredibly well-developed universe.
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So, I made progress on my Charisma Build guide. Experienced players will already know what to do on all the other choices, but I’ll flesh it out to help the newbies.
A very successful and wholesome playthrough: keep all the lieutenants, steamroll the Archon’s army, and save the younglings!
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Thank you @Bluebirb – responses like yours are why I do this. 
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If anyone is interested, I’ve come up with some extra achievements for the game, for players looking for challenges!
Come and Take a Ride With Me: Finish the game with 7 lieutenants in your rebellion (as demonstrated on the Notable Members screen).
Down But Not Out: Finish the game with less than 10 rebels (including children).
Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know How to Get It: Finish the game with over 70 Anarchy
I Have Seen a Security Hologram…: Give the order to kill the deserters’ children, and have it obeyed.
Defeat the Running Dogs of Capitalism: Anger the merchants so much that they offer chests of gold for your head.
Run with the Hares and Hunt with the Hounds: Take 2 points in Combat, stop the Harrowing, and secure Mikal de Rose’s assistance in Chapter 4.
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It’s done! When I posted Wiki-guides, there was some demand for increased detail, so I wrote the most detailed guide possible to XoR’s best combat build! Will link it on the Wiki as well.
- 2 Combat / 1 Intellect Aristocrat
- Compassionate / Devout / Homelander
- Uprising Start
- High Anarchy
- Angel’s Eclect
- Ally of Aristocrats
But there always has to be a counterpoint to an extremely successful run, and that is this…the only way you can get to 1 rebel remaining is through deliberately tanking raids (pick bad leaders to run them) and starving people to elicit a mutiny.
The failbuild has one major advantage over the successful build, though: it definitely killed off the traitor in Rim Square!
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I looked at your 2CHA 1INT Build and am really impressed. The fact that you put so much effort into doing just about everything you can in the game is something I don’t think I could manage. But I do have a question.
How big of a difference does it make if I were to change things like the gender, background, or motivation of the MC? Would it be relatively unaltered, or would I have a completely different game?
At first, I played this game with a jailbreaked version with maxed stats, but I was worried it would ruin my save files for the next game, so I’m trying to go about it in a more legit manner.
I’m trying to get the “best” play through with the most content in preparation for the next game.
Thanks.
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Heh thanks! I have indeed played every playthrough there is to do in this game. To answer your questions:
Changing gender makes no difference, but at some point in the game (either with Breden or with Kalt/Simon), you have to express a sexual interest in men (you do NOT ever need to act on that interest.)
You can make the MC Ruthless, but it is harder and requires you to go Eclect rather than Inner Voice (because you need to pick Ruthless for your first reason for rebellion, then keep pumping points into Ruthless to offset the Compassionate boosts that unfortunately accompany some Aristo Cred boosts.
You can make the MC Eclect rather than Inner Voice with minimal change. The Skeptical builds are somewhat weaker and it’s a different game.
You can make the MC Homelander instead with minimal (mostly flavor) changes.
In terms of getting the most content…there’s a minor issue here: we can’t have it all.
My guide has us plot with Ismene de Galis to set up the Architelone raid, because this boosts Aristo Cred. This means you give up having Bleys as a lieutenant. But if you go down the path that takes Bleys…you have to frame Ismene or Alaine, which means either the Aristos or Merchants abandon you. I wanted to have both Aristos and Merchants friendly when going into the next game.
If you want Bleys as a lieutenant…then I’d recommend being a Helot and doing the raid with Elery’s help, then framing Ismene, cause the Nobles are never going to befriend you anyways. 2CHA/1INT Helot is the build that can get 7 lieutenants with optimal play…with 2CHA/1INT Aristo, you can do that, but I generally give up 1 lieutenant and instead get a faction boost (which helps in the final battle, and perhaps next game.)
If you are interested in other optimal builds, I recommend you check out my “Knight-Errant” guide on Steam, which features the game’s strongest Combat build, which actually outnumbers and 1-round-kills the Archon’s army.
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That’s actually incredible. I didn’t even know this Bleys character existed. Again I’ve got to hand it to you for your drive to beat this game in every possible manner. I’ll make sure to check your Steam.
If I could ask just two more questions.
Is there an optimal build for a 2 INT play character? You’ve made one for MCs with 2 CHA or 2 STR.
And this is more of a personal question, but what do you consider the “best” build? I think you said 2CHA 1INT was your pick, but I wanted to know if that changed with time.
Thanks Again.
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So, my 2INT Steam guide is intended for newbies, it’s not a guide with optimal play. I think Ramidel (who was a beta tester that taught me a lot about the game) wrote an optimal play guide for 2INT/1CHA Aristos, but I’m not sure where it is.
2INT is very strong at defeating the Archon, in fact it can 1-round defeat Archon even if you screw up lots of stuff. I can write a guide for optimal play with it, 2INT/1COM is basically the same as my 2COM/1INT guide (just with more secret Theurgy). 2INT/1CHA will instead want to befriend the merchants, and go low-anarchy, this is a trickier playstyle.
In terms of the best build…2CHA/1INT Aristocrat. There is no other build that can as easily amass much wealth and goodwill. 2CHA is so powerful that you can play a fully peaceful winter and still defeat Archon in 2 combat rounds (serious).
That said, every build can easily handle Archon if you know what to do, and 2COM/1INT Aristo and 2COM/1INT Helot have the advantage of being able to completely disregard RNG (while 2CHA takes a bit of planning to handle RNG.)
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Not necessarily. While it’s my preference to go low-anarchy, you can go as anarchic as you like with it.
The INT route is about choices; there’s not a single optimal playthrough for it. If you keep theurgy secret, you can easily wipe the enemy theurges, but you can’t learn to heal. If you go loud early, then it’s easier to get your band to fight but you piss off the priests. And so on. The big tactical issue is that you need to ration your blood in the winter, which means relying on your subordinates for the small stuff.
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I think you’re right. 2INT/1CHA is a particularly mutable setup.
This is one build (Secret Theurge) that I’m partial to. It’s one of the rare builds in the game that justifies not using mule spam. I actually raid Helots for food, to avoid generating too much Anarchy. Yeomen are my recruiting pool, so I don’t hit them for mules. I befriend Aristos and Merchants as well. I finish Winter with 14 Anarchy (going to 19 later). I like to roleplay it as an elitist aristocrat, although I’m unclear why such a man would bother trying to save Alless and the other Helots.
EDIT: Never mind, I ran the same build as a Loud Theurge and it defeated Archon fairly handily, though with fewer survivors (225 adults) than the Secret build.
Rule of thumb: it’s often better to befriend Aristos and Merchants than to horribly piss them off.
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