Cadarn is said to be opium addict, and MC mentions mixing opium and alcohol has terrible results, which is something they apparently known thanks to Cadarn’s addiction. So it might be related.
The relevant bit is:
You say, “Careful on the opium, boys. Too much of the shite’ll fuck you up. Combine it with some ale, and you may drop with a couple sips.” You know what too much can do to a man. Images of Cadarn’s face flash through your mind.
To be precise it doesn’t explicitly say Cadarn was addicted; that’s more of a guess given MC talks about “too much of it”, which is something you’d see with a habitual user.
In my playthrough I believe it was said in Rade’s POV that 2,000 troops deserted. I haven’t finished a run where I engage him in battle yet but I imagine the casualties there would be higher?
Wow, good catch. Do you remember where it was said that Cadarn was addicted to opium? That really recontextualises his discussion with the soldiers about opium.
Sorry, my only time where I outright won the final battle I was cheating outrageously, so not sure how many he’s meant to lose normally.
Wow, I remember that conversation with the soldiers but didn’t connect the dots about Cadarn. Thanks, that is an interesting extra character developement.
You can make up to 3000 troops desert (if you have enough light cavalry and pursue aggressive strategy) along with some minor casualties you inflict while at it, but it’ll have heavy toll on your rangers and riders, plus your main force will suffer some attrition as well. Given you can absolutely wreck Rade in the open battle with casualties on your side that aren’t far from what you suffer on the guerilla route, i’m not sure if the latter path is worth it, especially since it also means you get one less point of noble’s support.
Plus, if we are being here really practical dicks, rangers are good for the jungle - they are skilled for guerilla warfare, but what would they do on plains and hills? They are no better than archers then, so your heavy cav and retinue are more valuable. So spend not-so-useful-soon rangers in the jungles and save heavy army for the next phase.
(I love my rangers and will die for every and each one of them, but it is what it is T^T)
Rangers are also absolute murder if they’re mixed with the regular infantry and you have veteran forces perk. In fact, they’re much more effective in this role than if you go for the guerilla strategy.
The thing is, I didn’t check my losses when I did the bleeding tactics, and I used the cautions option too. So I was very sure that my rangers are okay. And now you people tell me that they are not, you’re all horrible, I felt good about myself here for a minute and you all took that away from me T^T
I pretty much went all in on rangers, did the bleeding tactic +cautious approach, and ended up with 400+ casualties out of my 1,000 total rangers. Every other type of unit was under or barely in triple digits so the rangers definitely took the brunt of the damage.
I suspect then in my run that I described above, I had a glitch that confused men-at-arms for veterans (while the Veterans are grouped under Retinue and 2 points worth of Rangers are Veterans, they are unique). I hope that it’s fixed in the patch. Although I like the idea of the men-at-arms learning from the Veterans and taking to the Marshal and default Veterans like ducks to water.
Yeah, if you take Rade’s cannons in the ambush it’s at the cost of 160 rangers. This is painful, but probably worth it. But the attrition warfare losses are influenced by overall size of Rade’s forces, and it’s two hits to your ranger units, and each hit can easily exceed 200 rangers if Rade has more than 9000-11000 infantry.
Okay, the updated chapter nine battle is now live. The entire code has been scrapped and rewritten, and now should be a much less frustrating experience. The choices are now more tailored to your retinue and should make the fight more decisive and lethal.
Brief patchnotes:
Summary
Complete code overhaul for both the guerrilla campaign and the final battle proper
Knights on both sides now take significantly more casualties
Infantry losses are now proportional based on the ratio between levies and retinue
Cavalry on both sides have been made much more lethal; the rebel cavalry reaching your line is enough to practically guarantee a loss
The casualties for rangers is now influenced by where you have them positioned
Added a brief, optional prelude with additional advice
Bug fixes (including the negative cavalry casualties error)
Yes, and I felt as if it would be more insulting to add an almost fake ending early on that to not include one at all.
Well, that’s… odd. If the issue does happen again, please let me know.
It’s been overhauled and should be easier (?) or at the least, more decisive.
That’s actually pretty decent. I’ve seen Rade have 14k at the end.
Thank you! It’ll be fixed for the next update.
The option you chose is only avalible if you have over three MiraRespect, and it subtracts 1. The line after that checks for MiraRespect to be under 3, so you just had the perfect set up for it to bug. it should be fixed now.
I was planning to explore Sobik more in book 2, specifically focusing on the whole “Good King Sobik” title. Not all terrible fathers were terrible rulers, after all–or at least not entirely.
I’m pretty sure 11 is the highest already.
Wait, was it?
That line is a little unclear, but it’s not meant to imply suicide. It’s supposed to just show that she’s armed and not willing to remain trapped in a cell.
Good catch!
I’m pretty sure.
You’ll have your light cavalry supremacy come book two lol
The Marshal does genuinely have a good case to be “re-honored”, however: they weren’t a criminal and didn’t deserve it. They are a bastard, no matter what. Whether or not re-honoring is even possible (or if the Church would be willing to make an exception) remains to be seen. Perhaps it would a large donation of some variety.
Both Elya and the Marshal are canonically intelligent. Elya has also been depicted–no matter her strength–at being savvy in court politics. She doesn’t have military knowledge, however, and even a high strength Elya still needs a lot of assistance.
And a pretty major one, too.
Come on, when has this book ever been dark…
Elya absolutely wouldn’t have the military experience to raise an army–and even if she did–she’d be decimated in a field battle against either Rade or the MC. Her only chance would be to gain support of the nobility on principle of her birthright and legitimacy, which–in all fairness to her–she does have. The MC’s coup is absolutely illegal and their best chance is to earn legitimacy retrospectively. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission or what have you.
A high strength Elya will not go gently, I will say that. And perhaps a callous, spiteful enough Elya might even see Rade as the best option to throw her weight behind.
You gain much more heavy cavalry, but it reduces your VassalSupport, which is necessary for an achievement as well as playing a major role in the second book.
Not yet.
In an ideal world, the MC could do whatever the hell they wanted. But the support of the nobility is a crucial thing, especially for a monarch who won the crown through a coup like the Marshal.
The unfortunate truth is that those perpetuating the social stigma have a lot of their own swords–and a lot of levies to wield them.
King of the ashes actually is a perfect achievement name.
It will be explained fully by the end of the story, but it wasn’t a glorious death.
In the new version, the losses on both sides have been increased, but it still does not inflict nearly as much damage as the field battle.
