Because if mages are overpowered, then society has to come up with new methods of social control for ensuring that mages don’t wreck everything.
In this universe, they already do, being top of the rung in most if not all cases.
Only seems logical to me. If these powers could be obtained IRL it would replace wealth as the determining factor of social status and power.
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Precisely. Though even with the Hegemony, the flip side of Theurgical dominance is making sure that nobody who isn’t part of the elite gets any blood magic. One Sarcifer is quite enough.
Balance:
My main characters are a COM 2 INT 1noble that tries to be as friendly as possible with all the factions and an INT 2 CHA 1 helot who doesn’t really care about being friends with anyone. Both stop the harrowing.
My noble takes very few casualties in the winter (25 or so) because he leads every raid, but the fact that he leads every raid also means less raids get done in total. Usually ends up with 600 fully equipped followers (400 adults and 450ish weapons) and about 25k silver after all is said and done. Everyone loves me too since I give lots of my money away.
I have yet to perfect my helot MC play (I dont look at the code so what I learn is trial and error) so I dont have any specific numbers to give but I tend to end the helot playthrough with a much smaller, much richer army and only the helots, yeomen, and priests liking me (yay money).
Someone earlier said that COM 2 helps with obtaining mules. I don’t really see that though, since most of the ways to get mules don’t involve the MC fighting, and the one that does involve fighting you can just send a follower to lead it. Seems to me the way to get more mules is just to be willing to piss everyone off which is why my helot ends up so much richer than my noble.
Overall it seems COM is good for less deaths and leading from the front, INT is good mostly for wisardry which in turn is used to turn the tides of skirmishes that wouldn’t need turning in the first place with a COM character. COM requires you to be there though, so COM is a waste if you plan on sending many raids led by others. For this reasoning I think COM and INT are well balanced, though each are more suited to certain playstyles.
I don’t have any experience with CHA 2 characters, but some have said they are very useful.
Funny, that’s the mc I play too, however with mine the not really caring about friends is merely an act, as the truth is that there likely weren’t that many people willing to be his friends in the first place, in my mind his childhood friends, before he joined Breden’s little group, were basically limited to Dann, Ganelon and Charles the jongleur, (well there was “aunt” Joanna, but she feels more like family anyway) as like I said I think not many helots (before Breden came along) were willing to associate with the “weird” kid who was basically always somewhat of a rebel.
I basically took the easy way and just followed @cascat07 's tactical advice. 
True, the fact that good Intelligence also relies on the number of blood phials you have makes things a little more complicated. It also makes you rely on characters like Zvad and Breden more, since they’ll be doing much of the fighting or appeasing people.
As for CHA 2, it is very useful. Especially since you don’t really need Breden so much and can use your MC to find mules, get sympathy from helots, outshine priests, comfort people. It just falls behind on the fighting and planning notes.
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I have my nobles strategy all figured out and it seems to work very well. But for my helot… Mind telling me about cascats advice, or perhaps linking to it? If it matters my helot is a ruthless and cosmopolitan skeptic (the opposite of my noble in every way although that wasn’t planned, it just sort of happened.)
Yes that does seem very useful. I always have to go out of my way to reduce Bredens influence in favor of Zvad/Elery (for my helot) or Radmar (for my noble) in order to get what I want out of the planning meeting near the end. Even going out of my way to reduce Bredens influence as much as I can she always seems to come close to winning the vote, probably because I rely on her due to my own low CHA like you say.
I would hardly call mages overpowered. High damage output maybe but they trip and they break their neck. There’s a reason they are so squishy. That said, I do love to play mages because of how much they have potential to be powerfull but to reach that point they need to survive.
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Not that shit when they fly, are the 'verse equivalent of a grenade, and can drop mountains on you , am I right?
Well that’s got me thinking again on the myriad “crimes” of dear old dad. I mean it could even be possible that he’s the cause of Ganelon’s betrayal if he ratted him out to Hector somehow, though given how much Gan seems to hate us now, if we take a certain path I still think it’s rather unlikely, that sort of burning hatred seems like it would take more then just that.
There is also the fact that the helot mc apparently has a half-brother (or sister if the mc is female) out there somewhere and if dear old dad somehow couldn’t keep that child the mother was likely either a married helot or, more disturbingly yet more likely, a free woman. Which makes it likely that our half-brother is either a yeoman a merchant or even a dirty rotten “noble”, though my mc would likely find it hard to imagine dear old dad not only in the role of Dann but “getting away with it” without being harrowed too.
In any case dear old dad may provide a source of drama for the next couple of games too.
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At least in the noble path it’s still a half-brother. Unless that’s been changed recently.
Your father isn’t doing anything in-game to hurt you yet, and he knows he can’t go nowhere else, being the father of a rebel leader. The best thing, for me, would be seeing him alive. And suffering, knowing I’m better and that I’m doing well. Too bad I never got that choice with someone in real life lmao.
inb4 “ur dad’s the traitor” conspiracy theory
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Maybe I just assumed a gender-flip where there is none, then again the only character’s in this game who gender-flip seem to be the potential long-term li’s which has me a bit worried about the heir now. So if the half-sibling doesn’t gender flip I suppose I should count myself lucky that for all its Greek Influences XoR, unlike “Children of the Gods” isn’t a game that lets us romance our half-brother. .
I don’t think he’s the traitor right now, as he seems be a survivor at any cost type of person and we don’t seem to be at the stage where anyone is willing to offer dear old dad a plum deal for betraying us…yet.
Oh, I agree and if dad is still with us at the end my ceremony hating mc will probably make him the figurehead of state too.
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I had internet problems and i return with more than 200 new messages GIVE ME A SUMMARY HIGHLIGHTS PEOPLE
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Awww…poor Mara, unfortunately rambling forum discussions are not meetings you can easily keep notes of, so take a few days and catch up at your own leisure. 
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THE THAUMATARCH’S HEIR TWISTS YOUR NIPPLES TO NEW HEIGHTS
WE’RE MAKING A GUILD OF REBEL LEADERS
HISTORY! DEBATE! DISCUSSION!
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No furries and horses parties? Lol all of you seem borried without me
To clear up a couple of things about your half-brother: the aristo MC doesn’t have one, and the helot MC will shortly have confirmation from Joana that theirs died in infancy.
Sorry to waste an opportunity for family drama, but my plan is for this to remain an aspect of your dad’s story, not yours (directly, anyway).
If you’re an aristo, your father mentions his mother’s siblings while chatting with Horion, and that line of (former) Lastname-atou or de Surname will pop up later in the story. Other than that, I don’t currently plan for the game to include family members other than with your father. Family relationships among the helotry are atomized by sales and early deaths; you have a host of “cousins” in the camp but no one with a close known relationship.
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I believe bagel has remained a bagel. Username slips further into the form of Stalin. I’ve made a new MC named Grog who just likes to fight, drink, and keep his friends alive with no real grand goal. And I think Havenstone is just reminiscing on his DnD days.
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Aww…I think my mc would have liked a brother, though in the case of said “brother” being a “noble” he may never have publicly admitted it. 
Ah, well I guess that my helot mc only has “aunt” Joanna left now then.
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