I’ve never had that happen, but you CAN become Lord High Constable. As that was James’ (my original/mycanon playthrough) title in Stephen’s council.
what kind of build did you have and i forget what are the stat checks for sentminster and darrow, just so i know where too build too?
the only way i see too do it now, (and i have not tested it yet.) it too for go the industry and put focus on the titels?
Goshman,
Hey, I didn’t really know until recently but apparently I have always wanted to part of a great army of knights marching around the fields and roads of France following a great leader like the Black Prince or Henry V during the Hundred Year’s War. Anyway, I want to say how much I enjoyed playing Lord of Aswick. I had a lot of fun in the battles in Kingdom of Valmagne, the civil war in Norwall, and the court intrigues during the succession period. I tried not to end up getting sent to the Crusades. So, I only played that section of the game once and got poisoned there. Anyway, I know it must have been like writing a novel and tremendous amount of work. So thank you very much.
There were two scenes from the game/book that I thought really resonated most for me. First, I thought the Auldmill cathedral scene between Lady Catherine and the main character was unexpectedly tender and sweet. The love and redemption of Lady Catherine got me a little misty eyed. Second, the scene where the Black Prince eavesdrops on the conversation between the Earl and the main character, really worked for me. “The next time you see … ask him to remember who his liege lord is.” It was good reminder how import loyalty, duty, and honor are in relationships from work to home. Kudos to you.
The following are improvements to consider in future books/games. First, the maiden that you choose to marry should have a greater impact on the main character’s attribute scores and/or economic strength of the earldom. For example, Maiden Abbigail and the Varian Maidens should bring a significant economic contribution via dowry or commercial relationship with the Ayerstones. This should allow for more improvement projects for the earldom. Also, I think that Calias (sp?) being more sophisticated and intelligent might be very well liked in the Norwallian Court. Thus, the main character’s courtesy score should increase. Last, if you marry a Valmagnian Maiden ought to be able learn the language at another opportunity or more quickly. The last part of the book which deals with the succession period intrigues seem linear. Personally, the main character’s influence would be fair greater under Stephen who would look up to him like a father figure than under Augustine where the Lord Steward would help guide policies. Also, cousin John’s court would be particularly filled with acrimony and backstabbing between the Sterlings, the main character, and the Earl Gwisi. As a result, the trajectory of each one of the courts should be more varied.
Some things to consider.
Pauly
5 Likes
How do u marry Lady Adalheidis?
How do you become the queen’s concubine? I went through a few more plays but can’t figure it out can anyone help?
You can’t.
Choose the option to join the barons and later betray them. Reveal the conspiracy to Augustine. Win the Succession War.
After going back through once more, I found an option I missed due to my just thoughtlessly skimming through (this time I read the options) so I found where I had to give the intel . . . Yes it took me some time to figure out how and I normally don’t do betrayals . . . I’d much rather have my character be upfront about his loyalties.
1 Like
Okay so…I’m only in what I’m assuming is still the beginning of the story, but so far I’m already disappointed. The writing itself is pretty good, but there are many noticeable typos and the tense seems to switch between past and present constantly, sometimes even within the same sentence. There also seems to be an issue with the pacing; it seems like the flow could use lot of work because we inexplicably bounce back and forth between slow time changes and fast ones. By that I mean, it’ll suddenly say, “Yeah, 5 years just passed without you getting to do anything or see anything that happens around the castle.” Whoa.
However, that’s not the biggest problem. The thing that really brings this down for me is that it pretty much seems like you didn’t understand what choices are for. Not only are they astonishingly rare, but they’ve all been inconsequential so far, only altering the (so far useless) stats and maybe changing a couple of words here and there. And then after about 10 pages of reading without a single choice (not even a fake one!) I began thinking that there must have been a coding error that made me miss something…
Anyways, I finally got to a choice, only to discover that it wasn’t a choice at all. I was getting promoted to a squire by the Duke, but there was literally only one choice for how I could react…making it no more of a choice than whether or not to turn the page while reading a hardback book. Not only that, but it was clear to me that the stats do indeed not matter, because I had the lowest piety possible at that point but the single choice I was given during the duke’s ritual was to swear some oaths by God. I feel like there should have at least been some choices to decide how I feel about that, since I’m sure the oaths were mandatory.
2 Likes
Aerae Vulgaris: 1271
Name: Haruko de Essic
Age: 39
Wealth: You are a true noble with well governed lands and people.
Style: Noble Knight of the Holy Order of the Vigil
Heraldry: Sable, semy of roses Or, a Pegasus passant guardant crowned Or, wings addorsed elevated Or
Valour: 72%
Nobility: 64%
Courtesy: 65%
Piety: 67%
Humility: 52% Hubris: 48%
WHELP. Haruko Tsuki died VIA poisoning. slowly claps. I also got sent to the crusades! Finally! I had to pull myself away from supporting Stephen to do that XD as I have a mental issue apparently that refuses to let me lose when im backing him. I ended up backing Augustine because why not its a Harukoy thing to do when I refuse to back stephen because crusades.
Now I have a question! Why exactly does your wife (for me it was Cailen, as per my usual.) Describe the winner of the succession war as the rightful ruler, and the one you backed as a usurper? Is there some sort of social pressure thats forcing her to say that? Did she not agree with you and just not tell you (which seems weird in Cailen’s case…)? Some explanation please!
Also I ended up with 2 sons this time instead of a son and a daughter. I guess its random then? Answer please my lord @Goshman!
Do we ever learn more about what Cathrine was doing in city when you escort her?
1 Like
Thank you for the feedback. This is the kind of stuff I want. Everything you stated there has already been mentioned several times, but not in such detail and length.
I freely admit that the writing is horribly flawed. Going into this venture I thought my writing style was at least on par with any Englishman, but I clearly do need more experience in order to successfully draft a lengthy piece of prose. This is something that, if I had the wealth to do, a good editor or proofreader could fix; typos, jarring sentences and switching between past and present tense that isn’t allowable under pretense of stylistic choice.
I won’t put it down to being foreign. That’s no excuse. I should know better by now, especially when writing a piece other people are paying for.
The time skips could be better handled or fleshed out, no doubt about that either. But they are also necessary when telling a story that spans over seventy years. I sought to keep most of the massive jumps at the beginnings of chapters and I hope you find that they get better towards the end.
The choices on the other hand, I will defend to the death. In Lords of Aswick, even if the results of actions are determined two sequels from now, I sought to make as many choices as possible to matter. With that decision I also went with the conscious decision not to make the reader go through fake choices every other page in order to give them an unrewarding illusion of choice. If you read through the story completely and note how I structured it, it would be very unrewarding to be faced with dozens of choices that have absolutely no effect on anything in the story.
Perhaps I do not conform to your ideology about the usage of choices, but I understood choices fine. I simply did not use them as everyone else on CoG or HG do.
Also, the early story that you are talking about takes place in a time and place where people simply did not have choice. How much choice would a medieval page have when dealing with his liege? To be caned or not be caned? To swear and oath to a God that the page doesn’t believe in, or spit on the altar and be beheaded and/or burned for a grievous crime?
The question is, if you have made the decision to not believe in the God presented to you in the story, why do I need to give you a box that asks you “Do you believe all this humbug?” and present a couple of useless binary answers. As the reader, if you are already invested in the character, you would already know the answer to the question and scoff at giving out the oath as is expected of the character.
Once you get past the choices you just wrote about, it gets more involved, although you will still need to read quite a bit in order to get through the distance between choices.
I hope you will finish the story, or get as far as you can stomach it, and write your thoughts then as well. I would very much like to know if your mind was in any way altered by the end, or if any other grievances popped up.
@Fallaner The man of the house is gone to the Crusades, there’s ravenous new Lords popping up everywhere in the aftermath of a civil war seeking to make a grab at any lands or titles that the people on the wrong side had or simply from those families that are weak at the moment. Would you not be cautious with your wording when sending a letter that can be seized on the road and used as a way of extortion?
Yes, the children are random. It’s random whether or not you get children at all, it’s random if you get a boy or a girl. The only certainty when it comes to children is that if you get a bastard with Marguerite, you will get a boy.
@olo17jr No. There’s plenty of intrigue in the story with only fleeting mention to them.
6 Likes
As the Earl of Aswicdale seems to require a child in order for the sequel set-up, is it REALLY completely random?
Thanks for the answer on the letter’s wording, it does make a lot of sense that it’d be written that way now. I KIND of forgot that stuff like that may be occurring XD
Yes. If there are no male children, there’s the brother who inherits.
There will be issues with that in the future if you have daughters, since technically the brother was born before the family became nobility and gained titles.
As so, he is in kind of a limbo state over whether or not he’s entitled to the titles or the position of nobility, even though he is your flesh and blood. It will take blood, sweat, cash and plenty of proving his strength and guile in order to maintain his right to the Earldom and everything else that belongs to your family.
So his claim is very weak, but still stronger than that of female inheritors.
In the terms of sequels, having your brother inherit will result in a weaker lineage because a future generation’s claim can be questioned quite easily. For a good example, although in much greater scale than what the MC family would go through, look at the chaos around the War of the Roses.
1 Like
Can we maybe get a little more fleshed out dealings with our first born children? Because if I assume correctly, they will be the focus of the sequel and I’d like to have a little say in what happens with them. Specifically I’d like to have a daughter that became the next earl of ascwidale . . . Don’t ask, and yes I do always support the queen.
Actually the sequel will be skipping a couple of generations in the family. But there will be fleshing out on what happened in that intervening time at the start of the sequel.
The issue of female inheritance is the required political support involved. The rights of the next male inheritor will always be stronger than any female inheritor, unless the female rights are enforced with armies. So basically your daughter would need to marry someone with enough sway with the King or Queen of Norwall as to broker a deal where the male children of the daughter inherit (because a male is currently running the Earldom) or someone with enough power to march to Aswick and throw the MC’s brother out.
That in turn will inevitably result in the brother going to another noble who has the power to plant him back in the Earldom and a vicious cycle starts, with nobility probably supporting the brother because he was the first to inherit by the simple merit of being male.
tl;dr: No, female inheriting is not a thing for the Earldom at this point.
as i am reading it and someone feel free to correct me if i am wrong.
the sequel sounds like it going too be about ether the 5th duke or one of his 2 son`s.
i would think the order of birth and/or having other brothers would factor in somehow?
The twins of the 5th Earl of Aswicdale. At least one of whom will be a son.
Well thanks for the time to respond . . . Even if it did dash my hopes a little (wouldn’t the queen support me since I’m her lover?) excuse that guy he pops up from time to time (shut up I’m asking valid questions) no you shut up or I’m deleting up your messages (sigh fine go on then) as I was saying . . . Where was I? (You finished your point and was about to move on) ah! Yes that’s right, does the random child thing apply to the queen? Or does she just pin her pregnancies on her husband? Would be interesting if you could get a bastard from her
You can not be any more than a concubine to the queen, and you can’t have a child with her I believe. Wouldn’t know for sure though, im more of a Stephen-supporter.
You’re not completely alone, though not yet having read Aswick I can’t speak for degree. Similar comments have been made about Fatehaven and a few other games. I wholly agree that it’s a matter of taste, and commend your boldness in picking the minority style (indeed, what sounds like quite an austere version) and sticking with it.
3 Likes