The guides are enormously helpful - I had lots of difficulty facing down the army in Chapter 4. Just wanted to understand though, is this something that people do for achievement’s sake, or is there some future benefit for beating the army instead of dispersing your followers? The latter seems so much easier, not to mention less likely to bring down an even bigger force on your head.
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1: Beating the army gives you two weapons for each surviving outlaw.
2: As a theurge, beating the army can get you up to 9 extra blood phials.
3: Havenstone has indicated that there’ll be benefits for greater notoriety in the future.
4: As a secret theurge, fighting is actually the easiest path. You don’t really need tactics if you’ve got magical superiority over the battlefield.
Plus, yeah, for the sake of kicking the Archon’s ass.
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Does anybody know if the next game will have any stat boosts? And if so, will there be a new stat cap moving up from two? Or will we get a single new stat point to add to our PC without adjusting the cap?
So, I’ve been thinking about giving this game a shot, but I have heard from multiple sources that it’s very difficult and that newcomers are likely to struggle. Is there any outstanding advice you guys would offer to someone stepping into this game for the first time?
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So the first few times, you should just try to explore and do your own thing. This game has a very deep lore, and it’s better to have fun with that than it is to be obsessed with min-maxing from the beginning. When I started with the game I experimented on my own for a while.
While it’s a bit tricky to have optimal play, it’s VERY hard to screw up the game and lose horribly. Even if you are deliberately trying to ruin your rebellion, it requires you to go well out of your way. So don’t worry about poor results, you’ll never get them.
After a few runs, if you’re interested in powergaming and optimal play, I have written a very detailed guide here for a Combat-based Aristocrat.
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For that one int build you posted earlier. How the hell did you get 900+ followers? Did you utilize Brenden’s charisma? Also does it really matter if you raid the helots or the yeoman and recruit from the other? You said you raided Helots and recruited from the Yeoman and the only difference I could possibly think of is the cost it takes to buy their favor in the later chapters.
Right. Breden is the band’s best recruiter by a mile (except for a 2CHA Player), but she also will want the band to run back into the camps, which we don’t want (I like to fight the Archon). The biggest challenge of the Winter is to have enough Breden runs to generate a large rebellion, but not enough to have her become a de facto leader.
In that run, I used Breden so much that I actually had to solicit help from Simon to rally the band, though I still managed to build the consensus (and get the Combat bonus). But in other runs…these are the kind of numbers you can expect if you mix Breden and Radmar (and yourself) runs. This a 2COM/1CHA Low Anarchy Aristo build that began with with 642 adults (295 armed, 150 traps, 816 including kids) against just 455 enemy soldiers. I mixed recruiting runs with Breden and Player/Radmar.
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And what about the Helot and Yeoman thing?
Well, if you beat up Helots or Yeomen, they’re going to be less enthusiastic about joining your rebellion, or may even refuse to join you altogether! So you want to beat up on one and recruit from the other.
Most builds beat up Yeomen. They give out tons of mules (that you can sell later and buy back their assistance). Of course, getting food from Yeomen isn’t very effective, so you’ll have to find better ways of getting food.
But as I’ve posted above, Low Anarchy Aristo builds can be successful by beating up Helots for a zero-Anarchy, zero manpower loss food source!
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Can you beat the Archons army with a 2INT1CHA Homeland build?
I keep trying to make a Aristo Homelander Secret Wisard. But I always end up with too little rebels (<300) and they aren’t willing to fight. I manage to keep Zved but it still never works. I’m also trying to romance Brenden. But I can’t really cut her influence since I can’t get a massive army without her.
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You can. Just don’t use Breden so much, use Radmar a lot, and remember to build morale at the end of Winter.
The main thing is that Breden doesn’t like to fight.
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He could just send Breden away at the start of the Winter or…drown her at the end of the Winter.
There will be one stat boost early in each of the next four games. There is no stat cap.
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I’d rather not romance a corpse.
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4 games that’s incredible. I’m not sure how far ahead you’ve planned, but do you reckon that the Hegemon will be the big bad guy for all 4 games?
Fair enough, but one of the themes of XoR is that you can’t have it all. If you want to keep Breden around as a romance partner, you have to deal with all the problems she brings and her attempts to usurp control of the rebellion (and her being the traitor). If you send her away, you lose a powerful high-CHA recruiter. If you do the event where you drown her at the end of Chapter 2…well you get the best of both worlds.
I keep Breden in the rebellion, though more as a challenge than anything else.
I think I did it. I beat the army, I’ve romanced Brenden, I even got Joana (suspected Kryptast) killed by one of them giant dogs. But I’ve only got like 311 followers left, with half of them being children. Brenden also gave me the Kryptast code.
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Will we be able to change our players name in any of the next games? I’ve got a good playthrough going but screwed up on my PCs last name.
On the other hand learning the effectively delegate and manage potential future ministers will be of great help during the rebuilding phase particularly in the last game and especially for the high INT playthrough who cannot force everything through by sheer force of charisma.
Yeah, screw Breden! But even without the consensus you can make up for Breden’s demoralising by burning the forest and still come out on top with a secret theurge. I also hope that doing that and getting to a glorious victory will diminish Breden too.
Well as soon as some high Charisma sceptics join up…
My mc really doesn’t care for what Abelard wants, which seems to be a strong Shayardene, Laconnier monarchy. And that Hector is one of his allies would make my mc hate him even more should he find out. But then my mc would make a deal with the devil with Horion, Teren and the leaguers if it looked like the Laconniers were getting too strong.
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Agreed, some builds can fairly easily overcome the problems Breden brings. If you outnumber the enemy fairly substantially (which Low-Anarchy Aristo builds can get without much trouble), you’ll definitely have no trouble. Helot builds that butchered the de Merres will have some more problems.
But Breden will only be one problem among many. I think one of the themes of XoR is that while everyone wants rebellion, a lot of people want to full their own private goals as well. Radmar (and Alless) want vengeance against the nobility, but that’s obviously not something Abelard de Toman wants. Breden differs with you on means to an end, but other people differ on the ends themselves, which is much more dangerous.
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