How do you fight off the Triple Chalice?
And I say I’ll let the Boglands be independent, but the vote changes.
The way I did it, I fought off all three of them at the same time and spared Jenneth at the end. Might require a high martial score and some trial and error, but it’s doable. Jenneth is also bluffing about the poison, by the way.
I think the only thing you need to do for this is to defeat the Triple Chalice.
That ending requires:
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Hi I’m new here and I just had a couple of questions. First of all does anyone know how old the MC is? Secondly I read a post about Jenneta being your half sister. Can you actually find out about that in game and if so how?
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I think this might be a new thing which they put so that people won’t get the bug. Either way, I’ll be removing that message since the published version of the game will likely use a different save system, provided by CoG(as far as I am aware).
If you win the war against Sielccia, you can ask him for permission to annex it. He’ll then send you a letter accepting or denying it depending on a few things. If you oppose him, he demands that you go meet him in person, which you can do. Then you can try to convince/threaten/persuade him, and get an early ending.
Yes, all those things should either be mentioned during the “timeskips” at the later portion of the game. If they aren’t, it’s either a bug or I forgot something, but I think they’re all there.
Thanks, I forgot to send the player away after that.
It lowers civil unrest.
I think all the dogmas are open to interpretation, and how they should act on practice and revisionism of them should be an important part of the next game.
For example: What does “Life must be preserved above all” mean? Are people not to be condemned to death anymore? Are women to be forbidden from drinking Silphium? What is the punishment for going against that dogma? Is there a loophole where “life is preserved” but severe punishment is still applied to murderers, where perhaps they are tortured to the point where they kill themselves? And what if they don’t? And speaking of which, what kind of terrible entertainment can come up to replace public hangings and beheadings?
I’m okay with presenting hypocrisy and contradictory options regarding idealism x practice because I think it is all well too common in real life practices. Those things can be fuel for debate(and events) in the next game as well.
There are certain options and combinations which increase or decrease the likelihood of your new religions to become popular in the years to come, and perhaps a contradiction of this kind can impact negatively(although the use of force I think adds more than it takes in the end).
I purposefully omit this information most of the times because I want to allow people to roleplay however their want, but there is a very specific segment in the game that shows a few letters from the MC’s mother and you can infer your own age if you check their dates and do some math. I think it ends up being 18 or something similar.
You can, in some of the endings. Either go meet King Jeohr personally after conquering Sielccia(without his consent) or surrender when the Triple Chalice demands you to do so.
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You can also do this by either marrying her (if you’re a male) or giving her 10k gold.
What do you mean, the vote changes,? Do people vote different than how they initially did despite following the exact same steps you did prior?
As it currently stands, there seems to be literally no reason at all to give the king your gold or your men in the early part of the game. Considering you are 90% likely to either annex yourself from them or actively go about usurping power from them, there should realistically be some reason to send them the gold and men other than “they’re very cross with you”.
Similarly with the “trials”. While its interesting flavor text on a first playthrough, there aren’t any advantages to going through them since all the overall information you get from the White Wizard, and any other perks (your own religion) happen later in the story anyway.
In fact, in both instances, you only put yourself at a disadvantage. Giving gold and soldiers to the King puts a financial and military strain on your lands while qualifying for the trials means giving up either Kenrir or Abyssal Armor/Spawn.
It would be worth considering giving both options an advantageous aspect other than lore info to incentivize those options on second playthroughs, or at least keep those in mind for later games.
An example or two:
Summary
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During the battle against Noyedas, the King will send twice as many men as you sent him to help when you call on him.
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As a reward for bringing Seilc back into the fold, the King will award you 5k gold for your continued service to the crown.
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Helen, on your second visit, unlocks within you the power to see the future/more accurately discern your dreams
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Constantly trying and failing to resist the Genderless can give you a +10 to one of your stats (“You’ve tried countless times to convince them to spare you. So many times, that you’re ability to persuade have increased dramatically”)
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You get knowledge from either the Genderless or Helen or Vythos about an item that is very helpful either at the end of the game or into the next game.
In terms of what @RagEgnite mentions, none of them show up in the timeskip.
Will there be a bar to show the unrest or is that intentionally hidden? If hidden, will there be a way to gauge our civil unrest via asking around? (ie. talking to an advisor and that being a constant option to ask)
The man makes a solid point!
Wait… wut??? So Jenneth, who you can perform the devil’s tango with, is your sister? That is interesting, to say the least. I’d imagine she knows about this even if you decided to… love her… at the end of the game.
Also, in the next game, will she be a mistress if you are already married despite telling her you love her, or will that be omitted in the finished game?
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Oh man, she knows, she knows, she’s glorious. I asked my sister to videotape herself while playing this game. I want to save those reactions and watch them whenever I feel moody.
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It was without Governor Bluden, in fact I can’t seem to get him to join in. He doesn’t appear in my game.
I did not know that you needed 3 votes to reach a majority to be honest, I mean technically if you lead by 1 over everyone else it’s a majority, unless it’s based on the total amount of votes which I assume it is? And that would explain why I couldn’t make anyone the ruler because it would’ve been a 2 for either of them except for Avellyn.
I’ve never spoken to Bluden so I don’t know how many can actually win the voting then. I have to say it’s a bit of a shame, I was looking forward to making others the rulers even if it didn’t last longer than a few moments, and they all die regardless which I didn’t like either. But it is your game and I still enjoyed the rest of it! 
There are a few things I could suggest though before you launch the game:
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Having a bad relationship with Hereya (which is who I normally choose) with a low social score forces you both to part ways in the end, it would’ve been fun to continue the bad relationship, with her then continuing to openly cheat on you or whatever and you just suck it all up, the humiliation and everything that everyone knows, and even sireing another man’s child as well, if you want to take it that far…
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And on the topic of romance and children, it would’ve been fun to see a return of the peasant woman that cuckolded her husband, with a child from your one night stand with her. She seemed like the kind of woman (the scheming and manipulative kind) to try to angle her way in to getting riches or privileges, regardless if it is even your child to begin with.
And actually it would be fun to have the option to either indulge or execute her. But that’s all just a suggestion really, you don’t have to do anything and I respect your wishes with the game, it is honestly fine as it is! -
On another topic, at the final army fight with Noyedas, when you assess his army, it would be nice to see an assessment of your own army at the same time for comparison.
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And also, your archers if you’ve amassed them prior to the fight, they can kill a lot of the enemy soldiers before both armies meet on the battlefield. My last game I killed off so many that they only had 40 soldiers left including Noyedas, meanwhile I had over a thousand or two thousand left, but somehow Red tull, Ganbert, Low Blow and sister Myra all died against those 40 soldiers, which doesn’t seem very plausible. But it is never explicitly stated when in the entire battle that they die of course, they could’ve been killed much earlier on, it’s just the timing of their deaths being shown to you that somewhat implies that they all die in the final battle of the whole fight when you hunt Noyedas down. That could be changed perhaps to just announcing their deaths a bit earlier to account for the difference in numbers between the armies to make a little bit more sense.
If you want to, that is.
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I see. Thank you for the info
Yes, on that topic, can I just say how moving Vradnir’s epilogue was for same-sex mc’s? My sister is going to be so glad he didn’t drunkenly stab himself with his sword, lol. I pulled quite a lot of hair reading that part. Also, on the same subject, one of my most treasured, lol-inducing playthroughs was when I married f!mc to Jenneth while legitimizing Vradnir’s bastard, god I’m still cackling, what is the next game going to look like after this?
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^^This^^
Was hoping that would play out to something more, even if it was another mistress scenario.
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There are many variations depending on your previous interactions with the NPCs, and a few Social checks here and there. I think some final votes take into consideration the likeliness of a certain person being the winner as well.
Let’s say you, for example, are winning and Sessanah hates you, and she knows that Dulsen is the only one who can beat you. She might vote for him just to despise you.
This segment is one I’ll focus on revising, but I remember that some people might change their votes at the last moment(and the narration considers what could be the reasons for it).
I think this is okay because a first-time player will have to struggle and talk to his counselors about it before he makes a final decision. There are a few hints through the game that the request was purposefully unreasonable as well, as the king was ill advised and perhaps some people wanted him to become more alienated from his subjects. Or perhaps someone wanted to weaken your province before the Sielcner invasion.
I don’t know if the absolute majority of players would necessarily do that. Either way, here your decision of complying with the king’s request comes into consideration, and he might accept or refuse your request to annex Sielccia based on what you did before.
I do not design all interactions with the intent of "rewarding the player fairly via resources" for every risk taken, because I think this adds too much predictability. Sometimes, the reward for a previous decision that might have cost you something is just a chunk of text that acknowledges you did the right choice. Or sometimes, you’ll only know you did the wrong choice when a chunk of bad consequences comes back to haunt you.
So, since you used the term "realistically", I think that the current reasons for complying with the king’s request or not are entirely acceptable, as well as the consequences. I would argue that most people not YOLOing through the game and playing without metagaming would lean towards doing as their king tells them so as not to anger the crown, at least partially.
Bear in mind, I understand where the desire for balancing risk/reward in games comes from, and I do try to take it into consideration, I just think that many times it ends up being exactly the OPPOSITE of realistic.
To me, as a player, lore is often its own reward, but I do agree with you here in the sense that it would be better to have some reward simply for the fact that you are giving up an important thing (the abyssal body) in exchange for that interaction. I think you can keep Kenrir if you have high enough Social though.
King never sends you help, mostly because he can’t. You are informed repeatedly throughout the game(the amount can vary a lot depending on how you decide to play) that his situation is a very troubled one.
As before, this could make sense were not for the fact that the king is fucked up. If he had money to spare, he wouldn’t be requesting from you at the start. 
I like the idea of Hellen granting the player with something on the second visit, I just don’t know what it could be. I don’t see the clairvoyance that exists in the game as an exact science or something that can be quickly improved upon, and I also prefer that the player himself try to work out the meaning of his own dreams.
I do like this idea, but what I really wanted was to add a "way out" of that segment. I don’t think it is very satisfying that there’s no way to "win" the interaction. My desire would be to try to add a few more things to this scene, and I will keep your suggestions in mind if I find a way to do it.
That is feasible do and it does check the "reward" box, I’d just have to know exactly what it could be and how to present it into one of the conversations without it appearing forced.
Ok, let’s examine one by one. I’ll also make my annotations public in case anyone is curious or want to comment on something.
1: GRAVEMAKER
This uses the variable "sickness".
If you fund the research for the Gravemaker, it opens up a possibility of dialogue with Jenneth if you are suffering a Siege, in which it might be suggested that you use it against your enemies.
That is indeed the only consequence I could find, which means I need to add one in which people die from the disease if it is not researched or in which they are saved by the alchemists when an outbreak occurs.
2: PIECE OF THE FALLEN STAR
This uses the variable "cometAlchemist".
If you make a sword from it and has given the alchemists a piece of it to study, it will prompt this text:
>
> *if (cometAlchemist > 0)
> *set starcurse false
> *if (scholarIsHere)
> "The scabbard is made of lead. According to the alchemists, it is the only thing that can contain the poisonous humors," Meybuk says, using the information given by the result of the Alchemist’s Guild study.
>
> *if (scholarIsHere = false)
> The scabbard is made of lead because, according to the alchemists, it is the only thing that can contain the poisonous humors.
If you DON’T send a piece to them, then the variable STARCURSE will become true, which opens up hard consequences near the end of the game.
3: LORD GOYLER & SEIZED BOATS
This uses the SENTLETTER1 variable. It is prompted when you speak to Lord Goyler during the ceremony for Emyria(in case you decide to order it to be performed), and then you learn that it probably won’t do much good. The initial decision itself also might suggest (depending on your Social) that the order will not be well received.
In short, he doesn’t want to do it, but can’t say "no" to your face. I can make a better job at showing this, though.
You can check Civil Unrest in the Relations tab on the menu.
She always knew about it, she just never bothered to tell you.
I still have to consider how to best make that transition, but you can end up marrying her if you don’t have a wife.
He should only appear if you do not conquer Sielccia.
So, tradition dictates that you need at least 3 votes to avoid that the Western Peninsula becomes fragmentized. If someone was elected with just two votes because everyone else voted for different persons, this would likely mean that they would not accept the result and could gang up on the victorious one.
With the current system, if the majority elects someone and the minority refuses to acknowledge the victor, the majority will side together and enforce the result.
I think only you or Dulsen can win it.
It seems a lot of people didn’t like it. I still have some mixed thoughts about this.
I wanted to narrow the possibilities here because I need to put every possible RO in a “state” where it can be used in the next game. Its easier to keep track of Hereya if she has only two possible states, for example. If you consider the amount of RO and possible states for the game, then you might be more of acceptive of those restrictions, as I need to strive for feasibility and cut some stuff short.
I agree. Its one of the possible plot points for the next game. Actually, depending on how you end this one or start the next, you can even play her child. I always keep track of the people the MC has sex with because I want it all to have repercussions, however long they take.
While the numbers are not mentioned exactly, there’s a description which takes into account the ratio between your troops and his, and then tells if you are at an advantage/disadvantage, and how much of it as well.
Since you can check the number of troops in ohe menu, I think it might become a bit redundant if it is all on the same page, like: “Why is the game telling me that I am at a disadvantage here? Does he thinks I cannot tell a number is lower than the other?”
Damn. How many archers did you have? It’s not the first time people have reported weird things with them.
Also, were you suffering a siege or fighting in the open field?
No, I agree, they shouldn’t die to just 40 soldiers. The point here is more in terms of balance: unless you played for a lot of months after the ultimatum from Noyedas and kept recruiting troops or using cheats, then there should be no enormous discrepancy between the numbers of both armies.
Don’t worry, every sard in this game will pop a child to bring trouble to your next character in the future. 
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Tracking. I thought they did the exact same playthrough minus the change with one person at the vote yet others acted differently, hence my question. It shouldn’t do that, right?
Yes, but it’s a huge decision you give a first time player right off the bat with little way of parcing out it’s not legitimate.
This is without knowing, how much gold you’ll be able to amass in game, how quickly you’ll grow your army, how your stats will play, etc.
I remember my first playthrough, I decided “well, fair or not, he’s the king so whatevs” only to realize I was unprepared for the fight with Noyedas and he destroyed me. After my second and all but last playthroughs, I only gave half and hoped I wasn’t bringing an army on me. Turns out, that was enough to defeat my long lost cousin every time. Then, when I dealt with the King, due to my play styles being that of a conqueror, I never “asked” for his permission nor even honoured his demand to bring me to his kingdom to repledge my allegiance. This got even worse in my last playthrough where I didn’t even bother to send anyone for the king, nor respect any request he sent. Sure I got the news he didn’t like me but I knew from past playthroughs that being nice to him literally got me nowhere, so I didn’t care.
My point is that there would be more actual pause for me if there was any actual upside to being his ally. Currently there is no reason to do anything nice for him and only downsides.
And that’s certainly fair. The only issue, imo, is that you make following plays much less tense by giving no tangible aids for a decision. Ultimately it becomes a “right/ wrong” situation rather than a “complex” one. (Ie. Rather than “Sophie’s Choice” it’s “Slumdog Millionaire”)
Again, on playthrough 1, yes. On playthrough 2 and beyond, it’s unavoidable, especially if you died in your first play.
Also it’s perfectly realistic that the king send aide to a loyal vassal to fend off a bunch of usurper that are coming into their territory. In fact it’s kind of unrealistic that they don’t, imo.
But it’s lore you get anyway, and that’s my point. Everything you learn about the genderless, you find out in even more detail from the White Wizard. Again, there is no benefit other than saying, “yeah I know” when the ww tells you to “beware the church and start your own religion”.
If you got something extra that was meaningful, it would indeed make losing the abyssal spawn a more gut wrenching decision.
Sure, but there are ways around massive number help, lorewise. Ex. A gifted swordsman that helps in the battle / a tactician to give you better insight on dealing with this / even a trove of higher quality weapons & armor. My point is that, again, there is no reason to help him early in the game other than you not knowing better. That, for me, anyways, stokes animosity towards him and want to overthrow him rather than not.
It was just a consideration. Again, the root point is that it’s a middle finger to those that needlessly crippled themselves in the beginning. Something that can be done without funds while also making the player feel their choice wasn’t a waste, is that the king honors them with a title and more land / offers his sister to them as a congrats. Those cost nothing and don’t infringe on anything while also making it worth it to give so much to him in the beginning
Again, they’d only have this option by giving up the abyssal spawn. That’s what makes it tense.
Option A: have confusing dreams of the possible future but super armor / demon test subject
Option B: lose demon but have an more clear understanding of visions
That’s a fair trade, especially as it could potentially tip you off to the TC or to Jenneth’s betrayal early on enough to confront them.
Again, that’s just a thought that makes it fair rather than “wrong”
Personally, I like that it always ends with losing but that’s just me lol. Kind of shows how powerful they are as well as give a bit of an ominous foretelling of what’ll it mean to go against them…
Ex to consider playing with mentally. If they don’t mesh with what you want, ignore them:
Summary
Ex. Abyssal Protection Charm: When asked how she survived or about the Genderless, she includes that it was due to “this pendant”. She also says that her “son” has it and that he is holding it for you. Onus is on the player to find out who that is.
Charm allows player to be undetected by abyssal spawn and immune to their magic. Does not make them invulnerable and they can still be killed from non weird magic stuff.
Ex. Triple Chalice insignia: in the dialogue, she states that there are people who can help against the Genderless known as the Triple Chalice (TC). MC states they tried to kill him before/ they don’t know about them/ they’ve heard rumors about them. Helen says they are misguided about your role but ultimately good. She then touches your hand and gives you a TC insignia. This allows Jenneth and not Dadreos to work with you at the end while Dadreos refutes it and fights you still.
Ghost of the King: when talking to helen, you ask where the king died. She can tell you. Later, if you’re married to wyneva and have good relations, you can ask her to come with you to his grave. He will possess her and give you information, tell you about secret treasure, or give you knowledge of some long lost treaty to the seilc, making noyedas’ army weaker when facing you (cut in half as they are unsure who to follow).
Oh shit. Thanks kindly my friend
That’s hot… #wincestisbest
Yeah. Maybe consider having the option to “remove” your current wife for Jenneth. One that allows you to keep your right to those lands. One that makes use of Jenneth’s… abilities…
I, for one, appreciate it so its not unanimous by any means.
^^This^^
Curious, how is Hereya as a love interest? I’m not into strong women but I’m interested in seeing her deal in my next playthrough
Fucking. Awesome.
I reiterate; Fucking… AWESOME! #battleofthebastards…andheirs
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Are we able to save Sessanah at the Summit, or will she always die?
it shouldn’t, but I think it is very difficult for one player to do the EXACT same playthrough because there are many things to take into consideration.
That’s probably more a problem with the balance of the game than the request itself. It’s a concern that has been raised by multiple people, and I STILL have to do some playthroughs myself to see how well it is balanced. I don’t want people to lose the war just because they complied to the king’s request. It shouldn’t define your whole playthrough.
While I still think this is only such a big problem because of the meta-knowledge of having multiple playthroughs, I’m open to ideas.
(Originally I was going to let the player visit him in good terms and even save him from the conspiracy and what not, but I threw that out of the window)
I think the same point applies here. The consequences for your decisions are acknowledged by the game through dialogue, and you only perceive this as “right/wrong” situation AFTER a full playthrough.
Otherwise, there’s the invisible threat of the king opposing you if you try to take Sielccia without his authorization, but there’s also the possibility that a clever player can assume that perhaps the king can’t do much against him given his current situation.
While I do take replayability into consideration(otherwise I wouldn’t spend so much time making different branches and possibilities), I think its more important to focus on the experience people have the first time they play the game.
Ultimately, I “trick” players and use smoke and mirrors to mess with their expectations or surprise them somehow. Once they know how things really work, some people might be disappointed, yes, but at least for a moment there I had them, and hopefully they comprehend that the result makes sense given the context of things. I think people can find fault that path X doesn’t give them Y reward, but they can’t say that things happening the way they are do not make sense inside the dynamics of the world.
So, again, I’m okay with people struggling with the decision of sending aid to the king the first time around or not. Those who send aid and try to conquer Sielccia will find that the king is more acceptive of it than he would be in case they didn’t, and they will like that the game acknowledged that. They won’t know that they could have taken it without that.
People who didn’t send aid will find the king forbidding them of doing so, and then will they have the opportunity to oppose the king. Then they can decide which they think is the better option.
If its someone’s first time playing through these choices and they don’t know where they’ll lead, I think it’s going as planned. it’s making them consider their options with care and it is more or less rewarding bold/assertive playstyles.
You have to take into consideration the context of things. The king is not sending help because he is too busy with the rebellion in his lands. He also is surrounded by people who want to weaken his position and is the victim of a conspiracy to end the Meinstrel line. All of that is hinted in different parts of the game or outright explicitly stated by someone.
Although, given the way information is spread throughout the game and the limited amount you can get each playthrough, I can understand this not being entirely obvious. This is part of the rabbit-hole thing.
The point here is that it should be completetly acceptable that the king does not send you aid.
Again, I’m not against a reward per se, I just didn’t find any that I liked and I thought made sense at the same time.
It’s a fair point, although don’t think you necessarily get the SAME lore because some people will A) not entirely believe what this crazy random guy is saying and B) some will only get two answers from him and not get the full story.
But I agree it would be better to have something extra. I’m still not sure how to deal with those two segments. There have been suggestions of locking the talk with the WW behind a high Knowledge check, or make it only available if you pass through the trials. In a sense, I think this last one would more than pay off for the delivery of the body.
Those examples are actually cool, but I still think the king would keep those for himself.
Thinking about it, the things I don’t like about rewards here are actually quite contradictory.
On one side, it removes the possibility that the request was forged by people from the High Council wanting to undermine your relationship with the king by making an unreasonable request.
On the other side, the king would be rewarding you for doing something that was arguably already expected of you.
But I’m still leaning that it something of the sort can be done, I just don’t know what exactly.
Now, you talk about “adding more land” as a reward, but isn’t that EXACTLY what he is doing when he grants you control over Sielccia?
(As for the sister thing, I wouldn’t do something like that because it would add a claim to the Meinstrel bloodline inside your family and this would undermine some important plot points as well as open up too many new possibilities.)
This is a crazy idea that requires lots of specific combinations of choices in order to happen. I love it.
She curses like a sailor and loves like one as well. I don’t think I can say much without spoiling stuff.
I don’t know, I’ve said it sometimes before that I don’t like to keep adding new things to build if I can’t think of a reason as to why those things didn’t exist before. The province didn’t magically pop up out of nowhere when your playthrough started, and I think adding such basic types of buildings pass that feeling.
You can help her sister seize her identity and pretend you saved her.
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@MahatmaDagon I do think there should be the Choice for the MC to request help from the King. The King still won’t send any help, but it does at least clarify things for the MC’s point of view. Particularly for a MC that answered the King’s initial request, being later refused aid in return would seem a pretty clear breach of the feudal contract and added grounds to annex Sielccia without bothering to consult the King. The fact that Sielcner attacked the MC without worrying about the King would also be a powerful assessment of the King’s ability to intervene.
I also think there was plenty of grounds for certain backgrounds to refuse the initial request anyway. Specifically the background where the MC’s house fought against the “oppressive Sielc” King. It would have been tempting to refuse the demand for aid by the King of Ludland by sending only a history book about the excessive taxes by the last Sielc King.
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On everyone dying, I’d be totally okay with this if it was made clear in the sequel that it was the fault of the Triple Chalice and the MC wasn’t to blame (especially if the MC is still alive).
I think it might partly have been because of the hype before the voting update was uploaded, a lot of people were looking forward to the landsmeet and the possible scenarios? I’m not sure. They do get killed off quite spectacularly like an elegant red wedding scene, but killed by someone we haven’t really gotten much info on who turned out to be the main villain, sort of, which detracted from the experience? I have no idea.
Anyway, you caught me with my pants down I must say, I’ve cheated for so long I completely forgot I was cheating when I made my last post about the archers and the 40 soldiers killing my best men. 
My apologies for that, I didn’t mean to waste your time.
I did a clean playthrough without cheats just now though and ended up with just above 5000 (3100 archers) soldiers against 800 (from first being under siege until forced to meet on the open field), and they manage to kill all my notable characters like I previously posted about. Much better than 40 mind you!
And about the other army thing, the assessment of your own army numbers, I suppose it is just a matter of conveniency to be honest, a quality of life thing. You are correct that we could just go into the stats page and look at it. I leave that up to you though, it’s not a problem at all.
Governor Bluden doesn’t show up when I leave them the Sielcs alone, and he doesn’t show up if I ravage their lands either… 
By the way, does the specifics about how the voting works appear in-game anywhere? I’m just wondering if I am completely blind.
I also completely get your point about Hereya and a tad bit too many variables. Here I’d post a meme gif if I knew how to do it, with Chucky from SoA, “I accept that”, but that technology is a bit beyond me. 
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On the subject of the King and his request for aid, as well as every political leader prematurely expiring in that fated meeting…I’ll only add this. My sister has only just started playing the game, and this first in-game option gave her cause to pester me for spoilers. Why? Because she enjoys playing things tactically, and correctly reasoned that there were not enough reliable hints to deduce a safe decision from- nothing to guarantee her sorry backside 100% protection against very ominously implied consequences. Will the King be angry? Just how involved will he be in the plot? Lol. I also prefer to make decisions based on context- which is why I get such a kick from crashing and burning; it rarely ever happens.
But it happened this once! I sent troops and gold like the coward I am, then realized the king is only good for sending letters. I spent precious brain processing power on finding out how to convince Dulsen to give up his ambitions on the vacant throne, then realized all the nobles ultimately died like fruitflies in sugary apple cider. Despite having been warned multiple times that the meeting might turn out to be an armed situation(would you like this fine quality armor underneath your noble garments? Which counselor would you like with you? The warrior one or the Cardeed addict?), I trusted there was a point in winning the votes.
And that’s alright- in a game as profusely populated with choices and consequences as this one, the objective is to sort out the true ones from the false using nothing but critical thinking. Some will be immediately obvious (do you really want infect the invading army right outside your gates with disease?), some others will only become so after you’ve received the necessary codex (the King has, difficult as it is to believe, even more problems than you and couldn’t return your 1000 aurens in full even if you married twice).
That the author derives sadistic glee from your failures does not factor into this, I’m sure. (cue Vradnir dying in my fictional arms right before the end of the game)
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