This is definitely more of an advice kind of thing. The Cine believe that their ancestors are able to kinda “look in” on their descendants, but the view is limited and they typically don’t give information to one that might hurt another, so if your distant cousin lives in a clan you’re at war with it won’t help much. They’re not believed to know the future, though they might be aware of things from their birth forward, including things after their death.
In this particular instance, the PC believes they are speaking with their ancestors in particular. So their grandparents, great-grandparents, and such. Definitely not the dead-clan hive-mind (though that is possible and shamans sometimes do it!)
It’s hard to say exactly how much information they have at their disposal about the present. This kind of augury is generally fairly vague, and what people can get from it varies. It’s also not something the PC or even Aisling knows a great deal about.
And thanks a ton for the answers so far, guys. I’m working on incorporating many of these into the scene in question.
Oh my gawd, I’m smacking myself on the head for not knowing about this WIP. This is awesome! I love the world building, the characters, the way it is written and I love my jokester MC trying to nudge Sangarinus into relationship; it is hilarious!
This. Pretty much the main reason why I steered clear of Choice of Rebels, even though everyone I saw praised that game from head to toe. I like management in management games, not in my CYOAs…
Some small management that is already present wouldn’t be horrible if slightly expanded on. For example the aspects found in the Lords of Aswick cyoa. Personally I don’t mind a little but I do not want to be having to check the stat screen so often that my immersion is ruined while reading. If you look at the Infinity series, there is progressing amounts of management to be done but the reading material is so well crafted that it just blends into the story. Diaspora is a great read so either way I will be purchasing it the moment of release but feeling like I am making an added impact on the Cine would be pleasant.
I swear there’s some inverse law of whether or not I forget to leave the forum tab open and whether or not anyone says anything!
So hi guys, sorry about that. Yeah we’re generally trying to steer clear of too much by way of resource management. We’ve done a few check-ins where the PC is asked to decide the focus of what the Cine are doing with their resources, but we leave the details very general so it doesn’t become fussy. How the player responds to those will matter—we’re generally tracking what the balance is on trying to integrate with your surroundings vs. trying to build up military strength. I have vague hopes, for example, that it will be relevant at certain later points whether your people have been devoting enough time to language acquisition to be able to understand Castulian, vs. how fortified your island is, etc, but overall the focus is very much on the more personal interactions and decisions.
Personally I would be fine with resource management as long as it doesn’t reach Endless Legend levels, but that’s just me. I do not think that aspect detracts from the overall narrative. It spices it up in forcing you to make difficult decisions.
However, I do understand why the vast majority of players would be opposed to the idea especially in the format of CoG. Either way this story is lovely and I will read it regardless.
I went back and tried other RO routes and personality and each one of them is a delight. I tried to romance Aisling with my jokester MC and then played serious MC romancing Izzy. Everything is gold. I love the flavor texts that show personalities in stories.
@Jaybirdy i really hope you can implement my suggestion from a way back, threatening Adriana, hardening love interest…(aisling atleast)
and about the manage thing, i have to agree to a certain degree it will be good so long as this dontt keep us away from the story too much.
Man I REALLY wish you implement a middle of the roead choice of "Calling the empire AND the Iskendi and be like “We"ve got the Eye, we’ll be a safe harbor/trading partner and if you mf try to attack us we gonna summon an endless storm on your fleets”
Bonus point if you can crack a deal with the Leviathan
We’re alive! We’re back! And we’ve got a new game update for you!
Included in this quest is the culmination of some development for Aisling that the MC has been able to weigh in on throughout the game, which takes the form of her trial to become shaman of Clan Maghnus. Also included in the update is the aftermath of the player’s decision regarding which faction to invite to Divio, which leads to a conversation with Daghan, a talk which has some significant variants based on the choice.
We’re sorry for making you wait so long, and as always we’re thankful to everyone for your patience. We’re happy to be making forward progress again, and look forward to continuing that with Cormac’s quest, which is next up.
So happy to see the Cine and the Castulians again–I missed them so much.
Stuff I loved
My baby is growing up so fast. I legit felt my heart break a little, but I’m really glad she’s the clan’s shaman now
Aisling grins, scuffing the toe of her boot on the ground and turning just the faintest bit pink. “Thanks, bardach.” She’s all but bouncing in place. “Let’s go find her!”
Izling! Izling! IZLING!
I also took Pan on my first playthrough (the non-canonical one) because I wanted more scenes with them. Sue me.
Then with Izzy I noticed she says she asked her ancestors a question, and I realized my Deaman had to ask a question to get any type of interaction. Which probably means that Pan asked too. Mmmhhhh, is my beautiful sage questioning their beliefs maybe? Wondering if they’re doing the right thing? I’m super excited over this.
I think we edge pretty close to a legal grey area any time any kind of code is behind any amount of paywall, due to ChoiceScript copyright stuff, so unless someone with authority descends from above to declare this permissible we’re going to avoid the risk it would entail.
Which is a shame; I quite enjoy reading code of the CS games I own.
