If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t get the hang of gosub until I was halfway through writing Hallowford.
I think having him acknowledge that the guns slowed him down and he was better off leaving them somewhere else would reflect his character as a capable and adaptable commander - especially if that means his army moves a lot faster when he puts that lesson into practise.
Speaking of…
I’d advise giving Rade a win at some point, one that the Marshal can mitigate, but not necessarily prevent, through factors outside their control. Maybe it’s because the vassals are questioning the Marshal’s orders all the time and lead to a command snarl. Maybe Rade manages to steal a march simply because this time, he isn’t lugging siege guns with him.
It’ll make the player feel powerless and helpless for a while, and hammer home the fact that just because you’ve hamstrung him once doesn’t mean Rade has ceased to be a threat. They might complain at first, but when you give them the option to really rotate the turntables on him later on, they’ll probably appreciate it all the more.
There’s also the fact that eating a loss will play merry havoc with the Marshal’s emotional state, especially one who’s made it past ending 2: they’ve just managed to get a win, things seem on the up-and-up, but a lot of that self-worth comes from being a successful military commander. Losing a battle will definitely throw a lot of that carefully accumulated sense of self-worth into doubt.
For all that Frederick the Great has a reputation as one of the finest generals in history, he was more or less undergoing a constant mental breakdown through his early wars. There were times at the crucial points of battles where his nerves just broke, and at Kunersdorf, he basically tried to commit suicide-by-Russian Army. It’s not hard to see parallels that could be drawn here, especially as a reminder to those players who got the “happy” ending here that depression isn’t ever really cured or resolved, only dealt with.
I haven’t tried giving my army a bunch of traits (would almost feel TOO cheaty to me), but giving ourselves all 3 specializations is honestly my favorite way to play. Not just because it makes it a bit easier, but in my mind, the Marshal excelling in all 3 just makes sense to me. And it works REALLY well. So great work there.
Here’s hoping the code for the second game is a bit easier on every one.
Nope.
If you ever find yourself with time and boredom, I recommend giving it a go. Its an RPG that borders simulation of the medieval periods. I had to reinstall it after playing ITFO because its just so incredibly well done for its time period. You might find some inspiration in there, too. Its incredibly accurate.
I was curious if winning the final battle is possible. I fought a guerilla war instead of engaging in a pitched battle. If you can win the final battle, how does that change the end of the book? Does Rade still get away with a large army?
It is possible to win the final battle. It gives a slightly different ending where a noble is more impressed that you near wiped out rades army and you can get an achievement for beating the army and an a few achievements are tied to the beating of the open battle
I hope it is based on our specific ending as well as certain decisions/achievement flags—namely, whether we fought in a final battle or engaged in guerilla fighting, and how loyal the nobles are to our faction (I suggest flags rather than numbers because I think it may make things simpler for the author to set up for ITUO).
For example, Rade’s friends on the steppe are more cautious with their aid and his army sits at 4000 (arbitrary numbers) heading into ITUO because his army was obliterated in the final battle and Elya is in a stronger position and many nobles across Kanton acknowledge her as queen. This is because the Marshal got Ending 2, and fought in the final battle to get Victory and Decisive Blow as well as Total Loyalty. Regardless of what else the Marshal did, if they got the aforementioned flags, then Rade’s army is 4000 strong (or whatever arbitrary number the author chooses). However, I do believe that Rade should have a scripted win (similar to his (Nado’s) scripted loss at the Atiming), like how Cataphrak suggested.
@BlindSwift I don’t think the Erisians would side with Rade.
The writing is just so, so good.
I loved experiencing the Marshal’s mental anguish, and I played it deeply enough that Milon finally threw up his hands and said, Yikes, I’m not into this dumpster fire after all! See ya, Marshal.
I also love a clever nemesis, and the dialog and dynamics between Rade and my tactician marshal was everything I could have hoped for!
This would probably a good start for the second book. From my understanding the Erisians were nerfed hard in the border wars because a cavalry dominant country can’t really do that in a jungle. But on an open field with little to no cover? Yeah that’s a done deal, especially if the Erisians are more into horse archers than light cavalry. Plus it would help to even the numbers so to speak between Rade and the MC. Especially if the army numbers swell because of noble support.
Lol I don’t think they would either but that’s who he seems to want to get help from (This is me assuming that his “Friends in the East” are Erisians and my theory that the Border wars were just a series of clan raids into Krorid.)
He could probably justify pulling them in on the grounds of “Well, Elya already promised the Krorids independence, so clearly a line has been crossed.” The Erisians themselves might see that as a potential threat, given that Elya’s likely to continue to defend Kroridian interests if she wins.
I gotta say, “rebellious duke overthrow the monarchy without calling in a potentially predatory foreign power challenge 2023” is not off to a good start.
I’ve now finished reading at last… Great work!
I’ve liked the foreshadowing of some later events, and the differences/parallels between the start vs the end of the story. The POV sequences are also quite fun, especially when the characters become recognizable (I’ve grown attached to Vjeran what can I say). Raven’s POV in the final battle gave me shivers…
This is true for Whiskey-Four too but I’d like to compliment it regardless: I sometimes have trouble following long battle sequences because I tend to lose track of all the details, but ITFO is really engaging without feeling too elaborate so I’m really happy that I get to enjoy the action scenes!
I really enjoyed my playthrough, and I’m curious to see the other endings so I’ll definitely be poring over it again sometime.
I'll also point out just a couple of possible errors I came across while reading:
That feels… way too much. I had only 107 total light cavalrymen, and my whole army combined was definitely less than 9k.
I also noticed that the numbers of the army (as in, “two hundred archers” etc) aren’t capitalized when they’re at the beginning of a sentence, but I didn’t check if it was only some cases or in every instance. I didn’t get screenshots this time but I could pay a closer eye for my next read.
And finally, I bought on Steam and apart from the Ending achievement, all the others have "???" in their descriptions for me. Anyone else that got ITFO from there has this or is it a problem on my end? Screenshots for comparison:
It’s a draw because you don’t inflict anywhere near the amount of losses you can deal him if you win the open battle. Nobles don’t care about some fancy revolutionary tactics, they want a carpet of dead bodies.
Eh, as Snowflower mentioned it might not even be the Erisians that are getting called in but some third party which is left unknown to the readers. (The lack of understanding of the world hurts in this aspect). If it is the Erisians that reside within the East and live in the steppes than it really depends on how much of a central authority “Erisia” really is. If it’s a Monarchy like the Mongol Empire where Genghis Khan sat at the top than it could be possible they would get involved for that reason. If it is more of a confederation of separate clans like the Xiongnu than it could be as simple as offering independent clans gold/tribute/retribution in return for supplying mercenary forces.
This is honestly another thing I wish we were able to know more about. Based only on what we’ve seen in the novel the Erisians were brutal yes, but at the same time they weren’t doing anything that while frowned upon wasn’t uncommon in medieval war. (I.E. raiding and massacring villages and towns.)
I could have sworn that Rade and the Marshal shared the distinction of being the Erisians’ living nightmare. Rade in particular earned the nickname “the Butcher” from what he did to the Erisians.
I can see them jumping in in Endings 3 and 4 (to ensure that Kanton stays in civil war and/or to help the Marshal and Rade kill each other). I cannot see them siding with Rade in Ending 2. Unless as BlindSwift said, the “Erisians” are a bunch of clans with often disparate interests that happen to all live on the steppes (and most Kantonians/Kroridians, aside from the denizens of Reicester and Jutrea, can’t tell one clan from another and call them all Erisians), and Rade is friendly with some clans while being the monster that keeps the kids in line for others.
@Sujan_Dhakal the 1.1 patch is out. Not sure about the one fixing the latest round of big typos and little bugs (and correcting things like Erian to Erisian). According to BlindSwift those have been fixed.
You know, that’s a very fair point. I’ve only dabbled with writing non-interactive fiction, not actual COG games, so that’s something I forgot to take into consideration.
And don’t say your writing is sloppy, it’s pretty damned good.
Happened multiple times in history as well. The Swiss famously too shots at each other on the same battlefields like Malplaquet 1709, and Vienna 1683 had Lipka Tatars fight on the Polish side against the Ottomans who also had Tatars.
To get the “High Veterans presence” perk for your retinue you need to recruit 3 points worth of veterans from the war. The one free point doesn’t affect getting the perk.
