Do you perhaps have the army numbers for your final battle? It does sound wonky for some reason. Especially if you replayed with the same choices and ended up with different results.
Bring more archers, then. You can also try stationing the rangers with the archers to increase your ranged capability.
The game was updated a few days ago to make it easier, so try it now if you haven’t already. Generally it should be doable if you have 4+ units of archers in your army. If you have less than that then rangers can substitute, but they’re less effective so you’ll need more than 4 units combined.
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Maybe a feint, combined with vassal disagreement (ex. The debate in the Loyalist Kanton Coalition has the Marshal and Milon dealing with the smaller force and leaving a fort or something in the hands of a vassal who’s not that great a commander, only for it to be lost?). The Marshal’s prior decisions allow the loss to be mitigated somewhat (or not) but (much like the Battle of the Atiming can range from a slight but unambiguous victory to the Atiming River Massacre) it’s still unambiguously a loss.
Speaking of Milon, I hope that he plays more of a role in the coalition warfare of book 2, as the highest ranking noble of the coalition, a loyalist of the crown since the beginning, and someone who would back the Marshal in a meeting with the expanded coalition (against skeptics who haven’t seen the Marshal’s efficacy and the reasons why Elya gave them so much power) even and especially when he’s not romanced. It would probably win him more fans—I noticed that people who romance him love him (and I consider him one of the greatest ROs of all time), but you are the only person I’ve consistently seen commenting on him when he’s not romanced and while playing as M!Marshal (there may be more folks like you). For reference, Obren and Lada, when they aren’t romanced/romantically interested in the Marshal, are both prominent in the story in organic ways and the Marshal has a genuine friendship with them both (I don’t think that there’s anyone who hates Obren or wants him to be less prominent regardless of whether he’s interested in their Marshal, and Lada’s dynamic with F!Marshal convinced me to give her a chance with M!Marshal even though I thought she was creepy when playing as M!Marshal). Milon, on the other hand, felt more closed off and less like a friend when we play as M!Marshal for a good chunk of the book—while he gets much better in Chapter 5+ (latter half of 5 plus the rescue part of Chapter 6, but in Chapter 7 on you really notice it), Obren and Lada have friendship with ineligible Marshals much earlier.
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Have high jealous point of your sister and In final,overthrow her
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Here are the numbers.
1600 Levy Infantrymen fit for combat (8)
88 Light Cavalrymen fit for combat (1.75)
534 Heavy Cavalrymen fit for combat (10.67)
404 Levy Archers fit for combat (2.02)
600 Rangers fit for combat (3)
THE RETINUE
3000 soldiers fit for combat (15)
Traits:
+ Regimentation
+ Formation Combat
I understand that I’m at a disadvantage when it comes to numbers, but I did manage to get stalemate once and I don’t expect to get a win anyway.
I’ve retried many many many times with multiple combinations of choices, I’m pretty sure I’ve covered almost all combinations at this point. I would really hate to restart the whole game from the beginning (in case if me retrying that checkpoint caused this issue).
I would never ask for smth like this normally but considering the circumstances if you could perhaps advise which choices in my case might get me a better result, it would be amazing. Perhaps I’ve missed some combination of choices. I really hope so, I don’t want this to be some bug or smth totally random.
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I’m going to try and change the army stats to the ones you are sitting at and see if I can pull off a win. If I can i’ll let you know.
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I would be happy even with a stalemate, I never expected to win with these numbers against 14k rebels.
Thank you for looking into this, I appreciate this.
No problemo. Based on what you said with being able to drop the enemy cohesion to 70 you should have achieved a victory with a final scene of your choice so i’m not sure why it didn’t work out. Just to make sure though you haven’t save edited your current run or anything that might cause it to bug out?
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I only clicked the replay option after I got the stalemate the first time, didn’t do anything else. Right now I can’t even drop the enemy cohesion lower than 90 at all no matter what I do.
The numbers for cohesions that I mention in my messages are for my army, not enemy.
Could you give me the choices for stalemate that work for you with this numbers so I can try them out and see which results I can get?
So a few things to note here is that the result might be different because of the enemy numbers. You could potentially be dealing with more than I am dealing with. Furthermore in the battle i’m doing I am not being damaged by the siege cannon from chapter 8 and lowered the rangers down to 1. These two things might very well be why you can’t get a win. If you are dealing with the cannon and are able to get the numbers for rades army I would appreciate it and could try again with those. If not then it’s fine. Currently I’m able to get a stalemate and not much else no matter what i’ve tried.
The decisions I made are spread retinue evenly, Put the rangers in the back, Send out riders on the right and then fall back, Keep up the pressure, Signal the cavalry on the left to intercept (95-95, my cohesion vs rebel), order the archers to aim for rade and his archers, Send the cavalry on the right to intercept (90-91), Refocus archers onto the enemy infantry, Send light cavalry to flank the enemy lines, and pull men from the rear to fortify. (88-85). Join the infantry and choose your specialization for a stalemate.
Edit: Upon deciding to go ape brain with it. I was able to pull off a win. The same tactics with the exception of putting my retinue in the center instead of spread and to put my rangers in the front lines.I ended up with something like 84-74 and my final action of joining the infantry tipped it into a win. That could be because i’m using tactics marshal however so the specialization might be having an effect.
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If you do the encirclement in the river, but don’t kill them all, how many kills are you supposed to get? I found it weird how the text said about 1.5k layed dead, even though we only captured about 2k. Shouldnt it add up to 6.5k? Where did those 3k men go?
Also, is it better to get the prisioners to desert or to recruit them?
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Rebels are 14k men and cannons.
Ok I’ve tried you strategy, here is how it went:
-
Send out riders on the right and then fall back:
It first says that the rebels cavalry rushed back to their own line and that my losses were light.
However, the next screen says this: “The first group of rebel cavalry continues to tear into your men. Utilizing the momentum of their charge, they’ve carved deep into your right flank.” and “They leave behind a damaged, broken line.” Which can’t be because they didn’t even reach my right flank.
I’ve noticed this before, so I suppose the game mixed up several of my attempts and completely bugged out. -
Signal the cavalry on the left to intercept:
I get this on the next screen: “The enemy cavalry on your left continue to tear into your flank. Their momentum may be slowing, but they’re able to target your army from the side. They need to be dealt with.”
Again, as if I didn’t actually send my cavalry to intercept. It’s like some other choice was registered here and my actual choice was ignored.
Cohesion: 83 vs 97
After ordering archers to aim for rebel archers I am presented with a choice to send my cavalry not only to the right, but also to the left flank. Which I already did before, but the game didn’t register this.
Cohesion: 73 vs 96 (like I’m not doing any damage to the rebels at all…)
- Refocus archers onto the enemy infantry, Send light cavalry to flank the enemy lines, and pull men from the rear to fortify.
Cohesion: 68 vs 93 at this point which is game over.
So, this looks like a bug then, right? I suppose I’ll have to restart the game and hope for the better :’(
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Are you getting the dialogue where darin says something like “Well that was better than I thought it would be” or something similar. If so then it’s definitely an error is occuring of some kind. I’m not 100% sure the process for sending in a bugged game save but you might want to do that (If you even are allowed to do such). If it makes you feel better there are a couple guides on here that talk about the battle aspect of the game more in depth and how to cohesively get a victory in the final battle so that might be able to help you out, in general I recommend these posts:
Snowflower Tactics Guide
I, the Forgotten One Release Thread (1.2) - #296 by Snowflower
My Baseline battle setup guide
I, the Forgotten One Release Thread (1.2) - #272 by BlindSwift
As a formal note I know for a fact that my guide works but it may be somewhat difficult to understand/read if you have problems then feel free to DM me for clarification.
Edit:
You get less rebels serving rade with recruiting them. Interestingly enough there is a leadership specialization check for when you encircle the enemy and have prisoners. (Based on my own experience you only end up with prisoners during the encirclement so this may just my lack of differing options showing.
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I would argue that Rade crushing Belos’ Sally doesn’t do much to establish his credentials for brilliance. Ultimately, he defeated an inferior force from a position of strength (Belos was attacking his siege lines) led by an inexperienced, and arguably incompetent commander (though not necessarily an incompetent king, more on that later). It would have taken a truly inadequate general to lose that fight.
It’s one thing to talk up an antagonist, it’s another to demonstrate how formidable they are, and the most effective way to do that is by having them beat other opponents who have already been established as formidable in their own right. This is the cause of the oft-mentioned “Worf Effect”, where a character or an institution is established as powerful and competent, only to be repeatedly taken apart by antagonists to demonstrate their own power and competence - to a degree where the power and competence of the original party is degraded entirely.
The way around that is to make the people getting beaten the protagonist’s own. In a choice-based game, there can then be no real ambiguity that an antagonist is dangerous if they demonstrate that they can defeat you, despite your choices and despite your best efforts. This is important because it’s not necessarily enough to demonstrate that Rade is merely competent, because that means the Marshal is merely competent for defeating him. If Rade is supposed to be a best-in-class once-in-a-generation military genius, then he has to be shown defeating other characters demonstrated to be at the top of their field, or the Marshal themselves, under the right conditions.
On another note:
I feel like this is going to be far the more contentious take here, but I don’t honestly think Belos was an incompetent king. While he obviously didn’t explain it in a particularly helpful manner, in a lot of ways, he really didn’t have much of a choice but to sally from Wrido - and there’s a reason for that.
Kings, in the medieval sense, are ultimately war leaders. That’s why they have power over the aristocracy, and that’s why their subjects consider them legitimate. A king who is incapable or unwilling to protect his subjects in war is a king who loses his legitimacy, and a king who is newly on the throne and already facing down a rebellion with most of the aristocracy still on the fence needs to establish that legitimacy quickly and unequivocally.
From a purely military standpoint, the Marshal is absolutely correct when they advise that the best option would be to shelter behind the walls and wait out the siege. However, this is also perhaps the worst option from a political standpoint: all the nobles not in Wrido are on their estates, looking to see which side it would serve their interests to see crowned - and they will pick the side which seems most proactive and effective in militarily defending the interests of their subjects. Rade already has a massive advantage here: he’s an experienced war leader with a reputation for battlefield success, and he’s taken the initiative. If Belos stays - hides - behind his walls, then the rest of the nobility will see that as a lack of nerve, or a lack of ability, and they will adjust their loyalties accordingly.
Which means Belos might have been able to survive the siege, but his claim to kingship almost certainly wouldn’t. By the time the siege concluded, he would have likely found himself having lost most of the confidence of his aristocracy - and given that those guys are the bulk of Kanton’s actual military power (in the retinues they provide and the levies they muster), that makes a civil war unwinnable.
That means from a political perspective, Belos’ Sally was a huge gamble. Obviously it didn’t pan out - but that was also the case for young and still-untrusted monarchs in our history who tried to establish their legitimacy in wartime only to end up dead. If he had succeeded, he would have secured not only his reputation as a war leader, but also defeated a threat to his reign before it could entrench itself and spread dissent elsewhere, or demonstrate weakness to allow foreign powers to pile on.
It wasn’t an ideal decision, but it might have been the best one he had at the time.
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Yes, Darin says “Well that was better than I thought it would be”.
So yeah looks like a bug 
Alright, thank you for your help anyway! Looks I just was unlucky
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I’d have to do another playthrough, but is this how Rade is actually characterised? I meant his nickname isn’t anything to do with tactics or intelligence. It’s “The Butcher”. That implies ruthlessness and brutality, but not necessarily brilliance.
Possibly true (like I said I need to do a replay focusing specifically on how the text talks about Rade), but I wonder how much of that is Rade’s own inflated sense of ego combined with the MC being an unreliable narrator with a self esteem problem. I mean, the Kroridians(?) don’t flock to Rade. In fact they seem to have absolutely no issue at all in fighting against him, as opposed to the Innae Dirriman who they throw a damn parade for the second they know he’s back in town. That implies that the MC was much more essential during the Border Wars than Rade was.
I’m actually curious now whether Rade got the nickname from battle at all. There is the scene in the snow where you can talk about how you’re now worse than “The Butcher” because of how many of your men are dying. Is it possible “The Butcher” was a nickname given to Rade by his own men not because of how many of the enemy he killed but how many of his own men he got killed?
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I don’t really think it is that contentious. Obviously Sobik had some level of trust in Belos to rule and he also understood that every good king needs a good advisor which is why he emphasizes the Marshal must be a general for the military so far as even noting it as his dying wish. Furthermore from the few scenes he is in he plays the role of monarch fairly competently he acts imperious and with decisiveness showing that he understands the role he needs to play. However his need to fill the role of king was also what ultimately lead to his downfall as his need to establish his authority also extended to refusing the Marshall to obtain any authority that might question his, thus ultimately leading to the poorly planned and done cavalry charge into an enemy siege line.
In short: I agree from the few scenes he’s in that he’s shown to be an okay to good king. Certainly not a bad one. The only thing he can realistically be accused of is an inferiority complex. But when you have an older sibling who went and survived medieval vietnam from the age of 15 and live in a culture where martial prowess is celebrated that’s a hard bar to be compared to.
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The game mentions Rade was effectively calling the shots in at least early part of the War, and that a lot of MC’s own tactical prowess comes from picking up tips from Rade.
You won’t get a nickname to immortalize your butchery if you fail to get yourself in winning position from which such butchery can be executed – as MC demonstrates themselves, during the river battle.
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[quote=“Cataphrak, post:989, topic:138521”]
young and still-untrusted monarchs in our history who tried to establish their legitimacy in wartime only to end up dead.
Dead? What do you mean? King Sebastian is only missing! When Portugal needs him most, he shall yet return, bringing glory and prosperity to the nation!
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