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what the hell is bleden mark then if theres no destructive apathy
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Apr 6, 2021 02:22
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I'd say Mark is more about squandered potential, or mismanagement arising from EVIL; he may display apathy but it's in the context of the situation he's in/placed by Kyros. Or he might just be a jerk who'll always have that problem.
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Apr 6, 2021 02:40
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Scaramouche posted:This isn't supported by any 'lore' in the game at all but I thought it'd be neat if Kyros is just bored, and doesn't really care about outcomes at this point. After 400 years and godlike power, what's the point of sweating the small stuff? It kind of flies in the face of the thesis of the game being about evil instead of destructive apathy, but would be a very Black Company kind of swerve. Personally, I'm in camp "Kyros doesn't actually exist anymore in the typical sense of the word." Kyros has become the dream of good government.
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Apr 6, 2021 02:52
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who issues the messengers and edicts and stuff then
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Apr 6, 2021 03:20
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The next person up the hierarchy. Everything done in Kyros' name according to Kyros' will.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:24
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Cythereal posted:Personally, I'm in camp "Kyros doesn't actually exist anymore in the typical sense of the word." Kyros has become the dream of good government. I mean, Sirin actually knows her personally. And nearly managed to kill him. That doesn't really work.
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Apr 6, 2021 03:28
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we should have an official thread kyros gender convention. i suggest we crib sirins and alternate him and her
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Apr 6, 2021 03:30
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Stroth posted:I mean, Sirin actually knows her personally. And nearly managed to kill him. That doesn't really work. The other option is that the person Sirin met was basically the Metatron equivalent for Kyros but I do agree it's much better that the all powerful Overlord was nearly killed by an angry child singing at them. One thing I don't get about the Anarchy ending (well, one of many things) is that the Tiers are all fractured but... Sirin's there and basically doing missions of mercy and people are clearly being moved by it. Unless the Fatebinder gets paranoid and thinks Sirin would betray them, why wouldn't they have Sirin travel the entire Tiers, and eventually beyond the Tiers, singing of unity and camaraderie under the Fatebinder? Maybe as the years go on Sirin might change her view of you but in the near term if she's got high loyalty she's clearly going to be in favor of helping you in such a fashion. By all accounts, Sirin could assimilate people to your side like some sort of Borg Siren. Maybe the helmet would prevent that from being truly effective, but Sirin's song powers are still shown as being extremely potent and even with the helmet on it seems like anything short of an Archon (maybe) can be swayed by her. Without the helmet on she could probably mind control her way to world domination if she cared to do so.
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Apr 6, 2021 04:04
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Act Three Postmortem: I Am Kyros Or: This Was Never Going To End Well, Was It? Act Three is where the game begins mostly a straight run through a series of bossfights and then the ending. There's not much going on, so this is going to be a look at the game as a whole in the context of what we know about Act Three. As an aside, I'm officially lifting the spoiler rules - we've beaten the game, so go nuts and post untagged spoilers everywhere. I don't even care at this point. Are We The Baddies? Let me state that I really like the idea that our Fatebinder rises through the power struggles forced on her to challenge the Overlord as a matter of survival. We can't retire, and our enemies won't let us go home in peace and quit the politics game because we might do something stupid and get back into it. Tyranny is very clear that our character is picking up the tools of the tyrant along the way. We start with the Overlord granted-power to dole out absolute justice, and we end the game with the ability to issue Edicts like the Overlord. Now, no good is going to come of this: The Fellowship of the Ring posted:"No!" cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. "With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly." His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. "Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.” The Ring, of course, represents the power of the tyrant. At its weakest, it is merely privilege (invisibility) allowing the wielder to steal and cheat unhindered, at its strongest, it is the power to dominate and enslave. Such are the powers wielded by Cleopatra throughout the game. We are given the opportunity to summarily execute without appeal, and as the game progresses we gain the power to lay waste to the land via fire and darkness. The Fatebinder never gains any sort of ability to rally the common man, or grow crops, or anything that might be helpful to regular people. We're building a myth, not a consensus - the only average Tiersmen we talk to are the people in Lethian's Crossing we accidentally let die, the mob we talk down, and Essa. Even our symbolism and rise to power mirror that of Kyros:   Notice how the Kyros symbol looks a bit like a Spire and resonator? Myothis tells us that Kyros visited the Spires before the 400 year war began, our spire has only half the symbols lit up, and so forth. Yet the game is never quite clear what we become - are we fated to become a monster as Kyros did to cling to power, or did we actually eke some legitimacy out of our odd misadventures?  It's hard to say, mostly because the game itself can't bring itself to determine whether we end as the new Kyros, or whether we've somehow gathered power - with the support of Kyros' legal system and secret police - to become a fuzzier, gentler tyrant. We violently triumph over fascism and...whatever the Voices of Nerat is supposed to represent, but we gain the allegiance of the draconian laws and the extrajudicial death squad. This would seem to indicate that we are evil, but the ending slides, while fine on their own, collapse into incoherence.  Three of the five Archons are still here imposing order for us. Did we withdraw Tunon's law enforcers? Is Bleden Mark just chilling? The game implies we control what we can with an iron fist (such as the Vellum Citadel, or Verse's Callous Sisterhood) but then goes on to say this:  This, of course, is nonsense. Cleopatra is foreign, despite wrapping herself in the Tiers for legitimacy. Barik is from the North and is our highest ranking general. Verse is half-Northern and imposes the Scarlet Chorus virtues on her warband. There are no elections or even a popular rally for Cleopatra, we just take the infrastructure left in place by the occupying power and twist it to suit our needs.  Yet despite being a new tyrant, we let Sirin go on her merry way to spread love and peace through the land. It's very strange - Sirin is extremely loyal to us, and would probably help us fight Kyros if we asked nicely. As a matter of fact, we really shouldn't be letting any of our loyal companions go at all - it's a huge advantage for us to have reliable people who won't betray us like, well, the entire party, as we can actually motivate them by things other than greed and their personal failings. It's really the one advantage we have over Kyros at this point, and the game collapses into an incoherent mishmash, unable to decide if the player's rise to power is actually a small ray of hope or just another Kyros. That's kind of important! The game has been consistently pointing out that not only are the people in these systems flawed, but the systems themselves provide no choice except to do evil in the tyrant's name. I get that the developers wanted to end their story with us rising to challenge Kyros, and the Kyrosian Empire's collapse is out of scope for our rise to power. That's fine. I'm even ok with the developers leaving it ambiguous as to whether we can reform the system from the top, but what I dislike are the inconsistent messages that we're a tyrant who only cares about power but also we're letting one of our most powerful captains leave our service before a big war and go ramble on about peace and harmony. Things get less clear on different paths, as the rebel path lets us tell our commanders that they'll get a say in how the Tiers is run, while on the Disfavored path we can prove to Ashe that racism is dumb. We can't even use the excuse that the game is set in antiquity, as you have things like Athenian democracy or the Roman Republic. Is the game's thesis that, just as Kyros' evil ultimately destroys itself, we too will be destroyed if we follow this path? Or is the game trying to say that in taking up the tools of the tyrant we have become her? It's just kind of a confusing mess, and I would have preferred that the developers clarify that rather than add a new ending where you shout into a megaphone that you love Kyros and she sends you back a note telling you you rule the tiers. At the same time, I can understand why the developers would want to add a little ray of hope to the ending. Evil is disturbing, and adding some ending slide where the player character presides over a great purge of innocent civilians would be both depressing to read about and implicates the player directly in the evils of their character. There's a reason the Fatebinder is never given the option to go real deep into crap like slave trading and it's because that's dark enough to snap players out of the game. This isn't a character in a novel you can dissociate from yourself, it's a customizable avatar who wanders the world at your direction, says what you tell it to say, and might even look like you. The developers understandably would not want their game tainted with allegations of enabling the Fourth Stimpire, and players would probably just be too disgusted to continue. Ultimately you don't triumph over Tunon with brutality, but with compassion, humility, and the respect of your subordinates, and that's not a story that really benefits from going too deep into the wastewater. In conclusion, Tyranny opens strongly, begins to wear thin in the middle (the Blade Grave sans Amelia is very weak), and just kind of collapses into a boss rush symbolic of Kyros' empire collapsing around her. Ultimately it's a flawed but very ambitious game, with the skeleton of a game that could have been truly great shining through the dull combat, turgid DLC, and long unwanted prose descriptions of things we can see on screen. There are a lot of interesting innovations going on - notably, the hyperlink system has been copied by games including Pillars of Eternity 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker - and intriguing thematic concepts dragged down by terrible gameplay and uninspired dungeons. Thank you all for sticking through this game with me, and I hope you stick around for our second and last playthrough!
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Apr 6, 2021 04:50
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it is worth noting that planescape torment evil playthrough lets you be way more evil than tyranny
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Apr 6, 2021 04:58
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I forget how evil you can be in the Baldur's Gate games but considering the freedom of the Infinity Engine you can at least choose to kill every living thing you meet if you really want to (though you'll probably soft lock your progress at some point if you're especially careless), in addition to the actual ending for ToB.
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Apr 6, 2021 05:03
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Evil Fluffy posted:I forget how evil you can be in the Baldur's Gate games but considering the freedom of the Infinity Engine you can at least choose to kill every living thing you meet if you really want to (though you'll probably soft lock your progress at some point if you're especially careless), in addition to the actual ending for ToB. bg you can also be pretty evil. the only evil playthrough i ever played that was so fuckin evil it wasnt even fun anymore was pst tho
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Apr 6, 2021 05:20
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Mask of the Betrayer still has the best evil ending.
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Apr 6, 2021 06:09
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Evil Fluffy posted:I forget how evil you can be in the Baldur's Gate games but considering the freedom of the Infinity Engine you can at least choose to kill every living thing you meet if you really want to (though you'll probably soft lock your progress at some point if you're especially careless), in addition to the actual ending for ToB. Isn't that where Biff the Understudy came in, as an NPC replacing whomsoever was plot-important but killed by the player, just so the plot could continue no matter whom you killed? I think the Devs foresaw classic Murderhobo-tendencies even back then. wiegieman posted:Mask of the Betrayer still has the best evil ending. *sarcasm* What, you mean keeping the Wall of the Faithless intact as punishment for non-believers in a parasitic system was bad? But the game gave me alignment points for lawful?! /sarcasm
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Apr 6, 2021 07:39
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It feels like the game could've gained a lot by just asking you, the player, to define what your long term objective is. Even doing just that at the end of the game so the devs only have to rewrite the ending cards a bit would at least give the writers a defined set of parameters to work with.
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Apr 6, 2021 12:20
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A jargogle posted:It feels like the game could've gained a lot by just asking you, the player, to define what your long term objective is. Even doing just that at the end of the game so the devs only have to rewrite the ending cards a bit would at least give the writers a defined set of parameters to work with. this, paradoxically, risks giving the player too much agency. the especially pernicious part of how tyranny works is that it captures and subdues everyone, from kyros to Random Chorusperson #420, forcing them to act according to an objectively monstrous law of power. the fatebinder will also do awful things by necessity; to do otherwise is to ensure one's own downfall. the *best* you can hope for is detente and an emboldened oligarchy and probably a fairly brutal slave society which nonetheless offers a grain dole to the metropole and freedom of thought and expression to members of the privileged classes - the threat of kyros is such that the tiers cannot allow itself to dissolve into peasant communes or suchlike, and the power needed to fight kyros is a power that mirrors kyros' own. replacing the God-King with an oligarchic republic may be for the better, but given how fuzzy the laws of mortality are, it's unclear that the fatebinder can ever really relinquish power in a peaceful way so that whoever takes over doesn't feel that you're a threat to their power basically one might hope that the individual virtue of the allmighty sovereign wins out, but that's contrary to the central thesis of the game, which states that a virtuous sovereign is a short-lived sovereign for essentially structural reasons. most players, given the clear choice to escape this trap, will be allowed to simply miss that thesis.
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Apr 6, 2021 12:41
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Yeah, the Anarchist route is very satisfying to pick when you're playing through the game, but it is not the one that leads to stability for the tiers. The ending slides kinda flub it, but the Fatebinder doesn't actually have the power to reshape them as you see fit; they're just one person. They can hold off Kyros for now by sliding into their nuke magic, and the Bastard City is relatively stable because Tunon is around, but they've got no allies anywhere else. Lehtian's Crossing is kind of a railroad because you could theoretically be on good terms with its people and return the helmet, but everywhere else? We're no friends of the Unbroken, or the Stone Sea Villagers, and the Sages remain scattered to the four winds. This is why the Chorus path is actually the preferable one, even if it means doing some vile poo poo at Nerat's bidding. The Disfavored are brownshirts by design; they're not really good for anything but fightin and slaving, even if we could get Ashe to bend the knee. The Rebels at least are able to ensure some stability, but you have to hitch your cart to some stinkers, like the Vendrien Guard or the Bronze Brotherhood. The Chorus, though, are moldable. If they can be properly wrested from Nerat, they can be shaped to a form that better suits the player's design.
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Apr 6, 2021 13:04
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The ending problem really is that driving home a more realistic message about the nature of the system of tyrranny in relation to the PC shifts from making general political points about the nature of power to making specific criticisms of the choices the player made in playing the game. And those choices were entirely constrained by the designers of the game. It’s like designing a game with repeated uninteresting combats that can’t be resolved peacefully and then ending it with a sharp critique of the player for fighting and killing all those people. The message gets distorted from “people in a tyrannical system get trapped by the system” into “you are a bad person for playing this game and you should feel bad.” That’s not generally a message designers like to build into their games, and doing it in a game that gives you no other choice ultimately inscribes the designers into the tyrant’s position. Maybe a really skilled design team could pull that off, but not on a deadline and with expectations of making a profit. I already mentioned the Planescape:Torment ending, where making better or worse choices in the game affects the kind of endgame you have and matters to your companions, but doesn’t actually change the fate of the main character. But that really wouldn’t work for a game where your character has a future.
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Apr 6, 2021 15:19
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I swear, somewhere when you activate a Spire or focus your mind (i don't recall exactly), you see a mysterious woman approaching the spire just like you did, only years ago. When she realizes someone is watching her, she makes the vision disappear or something of the sort. To my mind, that was a clear signal of Kyro's beginnings, and how close they were to yours. The problem is that I can't find this particular interaction and I'm sounding like a crazy person.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:11
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i mean, tyranny does end with the fatebinder committing a massive atrocity at people very far away to make a point with people very conspicuously not mentioning the human cost of that attack so you're clearly at least willing to break a fair few eggs in order to survive and rule
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Apr 6, 2021 16:23
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I mean, there's obviously no way for a Fatebinder to actually survive and not be purged if they aren't willing to crack a few eggs in service of Kyros in the first place. That Cleopatra was willing to do is just another sign of how hosed the system is in how even it's revolutionaries end up constrained due to the all pervasive control done by Kyros. E: Also at least you have the choice of an option that doesn't immediately murder a bunch of people, it'd be different if the game only had options like "Burn the capital, Rend it apart with storms, Drain all life out causing it to utterly collapse" Even if eternal night is pretty horrific. I think Malediction is the best overall choice for bolstering your own power while not murdering countless amounts of people and why I wanted to see it picked.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:59
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right, so the genuinely heroic individual cannot change the way this stuff works, because there's a bunch of gates which you have to do terrible things to pass. so getting power requires atrocities and, as we see in kyros' example, you need to be both clever and ruthless to keep power - and as we can see with our defeated foes, the price of giving up power is usually death poor tunon will never be able to dispense the justice he desires
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Apr 6, 2021 18:03
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Mans posted:I swear, somewhere when you activate a Spire or focus your mind (i don't recall exactly), you see a mysterious woman approaching the spire just like you did, only years ago. I believe you're imagining that because afaik the player never gets a firsthand description of Kyros, let alone anything to do with gender. You're supposed to try and internally reconcile all these differing accounts (some in-person) of origin, gender, longevity, power etc. Victis fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 18:12
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It wasn't a description of Kyros, but of *someone* on the Spire doing the exact same thing you did, only ages ago. I'll literally boot up the game to check on this, I swear i recall this. In another topic, I think the game completely forgets about the other Fatebinders at the end. That's somewhat disappointing.
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Apr 6, 2021 22:05
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ChaseSP posted:I mean, there's obviously no way for a Fatebinder to actually survive and not be purged if they aren't willing to crack a few eggs in service of Kyros in the first place. That Cleopatra was willing to do is just another sign of how hosed the system is in how even it's revolutionaries end up constrained due to the all pervasive control done by Kyros. Malediction seems like a very weird thing compared to the other edicts, which are depicted as utterly indiscriminate. V. Illych L. posted:this, paradoxically, risks giving the player too much agency. the especially pernicious part of how tyranny works is that it captures and subdues everyone, from kyros to Random Chorusperson #420, forcing them to act according to an objectively monstrous law of power. the fatebinder will also do awful things by necessity; to do otherwise is to ensure one's own downfall. the *best* you can hope for is detente and an emboldened oligarchy and probably a fairly brutal slave society which nonetheless offers a grain dole to the metropole and freedom of thought and expression to members of the privileged classes - the threat of kyros is such that the tiers cannot allow itself to dissolve into peasant communes or suchlike, and the power needed to fight kyros is a power that mirrors kyros' own. replacing the God-King with an oligarchic republic may be for the better, but given how fuzzy the laws of mortality are, it's unclear that the fatebinder can ever really relinquish power in a peaceful way so that whoever takes over doesn't feel that you're a threat to their power The ending cards don't have to say you succeed though.
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Apr 6, 2021 22:48
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I'm curious, the spire has a power bar for edicts. It's filled by resolving Kyros' edicts and depletes when you cast your ones, including using optional ones against Ashe and Nerat. Can you fail to cast the edict at Kyros' capital at the end because you squandered your power? If so, how does the ending change?
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Apr 7, 2021 03:01
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:It's hard to say, mostly because the game itself can't bring itself to determine whether we end as the new Kyros, or whether we've somehow gathered power - with the support of Kyros' legal system and secret police - to become a fuzzier, gentler tyrant. We violently triumph over fascism and...whatever the Voices of Nerat is supposed to represent, Maybe I'm just inventing too much, but to me Nerat (who is far more distinct from his army than Ashe is) represents the opportunists. Nerat is the kind of person who is rich enough to 'always be on the winning side'. Like a political campaign consultant who switches parties because it's all about their career, not their actual beliefs. It doesn't matter who their boss is - either way, they know how to rile up a crowd. Nerat is always capable of providing the right face for the situation. Nerat's own downfall mirrors Tunon's. Tunon has been literally compressed (he has one less face than he used to) in order to fit an uncompromising vision that he breaks when it's proved that it's incoherent. Nerat has so many faces that eventually it's just too much to keep track of - he shows the wrong face to the wrong people and gets called out on it. To draw a crude comparison to US politics - Tunon is your 'constitutional literalist' supreme court judge forced to justify increasingly ludicrous positions under "it's consistent with what the Founding Fathers would have wanted". Nerat is someone like Bloomberg - a rich man who caters to the rich, running as a Democrat and presenting themselves as a man of the people - the point that even his allies can't stand his levels of hypocrisy in the end and it's just too much. Tunon and Ashe are forced to justify their own actions to themselves as being for the good of those they look after, and it's eating them up inside. Nerat never cared. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 8, 2021 |
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Apr 8, 2021 00:47
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Governor Boris and the Alternative Conquest Welcome back! Last time, on Tyranny, Cleopatra Jones finished the game, subverting the entire Kyrosian legal system to begin her maybe tyrannical reign! Today, we're going to introduce an entirely new character and take a different route.  Tyranny does have a new game plus feature, but I'm not a fan as I believe it kicks all the level scaling into full gear. Bleh.  We've seen the intro before, 400 years of conquest, Kyros, Archons, blah blah blah. I'm going to try to abridge the stuff we've seen before. I won't lie, my usual behavior with multi-route games is just to google the other endings and not replay them.  Meet Boris! He's an ex-lawbreaker with training in greatswords and war maces. Because the game is weird about skills, this corresponds to two skills from the same tree and a lot less lore. I'm planning on having him pick up magic to use absurd self buffs instead of blowing everyone up, so expect to see him running around with haste, regeneration, and life drain weapons.  Boris is also gonna be the party tank, because I'm curious to see if this works. Worst case scenario it sucks and Cespar turns him into a pure mage. Play without magic? Are you nuts?  Instead of infiltrating the Bastard City, we're going right in. Boris doesn't have time for this stupid small talk or subterfuge crap.  Boris is marching with the Disfavored, because you get some more reactions. I know, it's explicitly a dumb racist thing, but rest assured, we are going to be trolling Ashe in just a few minutes.  The irony is that a ton of the mercs were bribed to desert, so this proves absolutely nothing about Disfavored superiority. We presumably killed Eb's family.   We balance out our Disfavored adventures by giving the prisoners to the Chorus. I'm going to have a vote of which of the two legions we join when we get there.   I grab Concealing Shadows because we're tanking and it says nothing about it breaking taunts or any of that nonsense.  It's also the balanced option, so we get to have the armies work together for once.  We went to Apex last time, so we're going to Lethian's Crossing now.  Years ago, Lethian the Bold founded a small merchant town at the intersection of ancient Oldwalls. A pact between the settlers and a mercenary company meant that caravans were able to travel without fear of bandits or Bane, and the town thrived in modest insignificance. Lethian's Crossing drew Kyros' attention for the iron deposits in the surrounding hills. With the region under Kyros' control, the Northern smith-mages could set up workshops to refine ore and arm the Disfavored with the finest weapons in the known world. The Archon of Secrets dismantled the mercenary support with a generous bribe, taking the Crossing in a bloodless victory. Tunon dispatched you to travel alongside Kyros' forces and bring order to the region.  I'd been mulling over the idea of killing all the companions and running solo, but ultimately decided that's just too much hard mode, especially as Lantry is necessary to unlock a lot of the good sigils.  Long story short, Sirin enthralled a Disfavored and now they want to shut down her recruitment, which screws the Chorus hard. I let her proceed.   I'm sure this in no way screws with her head. Moving on!  This one's a fun one.  We need to pick one of the armies to hold the Crossing against the Bane. The thing is, both armies need their troops to operate in Apex, so picking an army to hold the Crossing pisses them off but gets us favor with their counterparts.  We picked the Chorus last time, so....   I do like that it's year two of the Conquest and already the armies' relations are falling apart. I give it to the Chorus on the grounds that they fought the Bane.  The rest of the text posted:...absent. The Scarlet Chorus quartermaster claimed ignorance of the matter. Woops! Now, we know what's actually going on. Harichand Bronze - the merchant-cum-Chorus-agent - is most likely diverting the iron to where Nerat wants it to go. Remember how a big plot point of Act 1 was that Nerat armed the rebels?  Lastly, we're taking the Boris train to Stalwart, mainly because the Disfavored's reaction to the Edict of Storms is mind-boggling given what we know now.  The Realm of Stalwart was best known for its proud army - disciplined, courageous, and undefeated on their home soil. Skill and resolve made Stalwart a military power that Kyros' forces approached with due caution. With its southern position, Stalwart had been largely safe from war - watching for two years as its neighbors fell to Kyros' forces. On the dawn of the third year of war, Kyros' forces were finally poised to invade the Stalwart peninsula, and subdue the Tier's [sic] most vaunted army.  Two fuckups, both alike in dignity In fair Stalwart, where we lay our scene.  The sad part is they are probably both right.  We're not winning this one.  The rest of the text posted:...gesture was needed to instill fear. We pick the Scarlet Chorus option, sending the unfortunate woman to Nerat. The Disfavored option is to execute the prisoner to instill fear in the enemy.   The rest of the text posted:...deliver Kyros' Edict. As we're the Fatebinder in the Blade Grave, we get to invoke the Edict of Storms and ruin Barik's life. It's kind of not our fault this time. So, we know from our prior playthrough that the Disfavored have combat operations in the area, do they want us to wait?  Nope! The Disfavored want us to drop the Edict immediately!  It's the Chorus who want us to wait. I oblige the Chorus in the hopes of not frying Barik.  So we've literally delayed the Edict to get all the civilians out of the blast zone for Nerat's nefarious purposes. Having warned everyone, are the Disfavored going to get out of the way?   The Edict of Storms posted:The clear skies darkened as you read the final words of the Edict. A flurry of wind and rain whipped through the rolling plains and craggy canyons, turning rocks, uprooted trees, and hapless soldiers into hazardous shrapnel. Armed with a measure of foresight, you were able to remove yourself from the area before the storms grew more violent. Over time, nearby communities told of cyclones consisting of thousands of soldiers' worth of limbs, spears, armor, and skulls. What's more, the weather showed no sign of dissipating. It's the same text if you don't delay. Even if you literally wait for everyone to evacuate, Graven Ashe still marches his troops in to attack the fort to rescue the daughter who doesn't want to be rescued.  The opening text is the same, skip!  I really should have disabled the tutorial. Aurora's dialog is the same, but we [glare silently] at her instead of telling her about the Edict and get this:  She still hurls herself into battle yelling "For the glory of Kyros" to escape our attention. Funny, that.   Boris doesn't know any magic. We'll change this in a few minutes.  We pick up Verse and agree that looting is good. Funny story, "loot" is actually an Indian word that entered English because (according to Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire) the British were stealing so much from India they stole the word to describe what they were doing.  The conversation with Demos is pretty much the same, except we say no surrender and gain wrath with Vendrien Guard.  As we never went to Apex and negotiated a peace, we can't use our reputation to help us here. Fortunately, Boris did enough pushups to just rush the guy with Athletics and we break Drastus out so he can lead the Disfavored to their deaths.  He gets the poo poo stabbed out of him as in Cleo's branch, but we promised him nothing so we don't care to call him on it.  Drastus is still a moron.  : All that training and Graven Ashe doesn't teach you to read? Then things proceed as normal, where we discover the recruitment material and Drastus declares the rebels' plans are destroyed forever even though it rubs in just how screwed we are by having to use these idiots to somehow win the fight before Kyros kills us all.  We can actually chat Aurora up a bit. : Seen anything interesting during the war? : I once saw a Forge-Bound artisan set himself on fire... occupational hazard. That was an unpleasant day. The first of many, to be honest. : How long have you been with the Disfavored? Originally I was going to make fun of the adult woman for counting on her fingers, then I realized that prior to modern math education and Arabic numerals that might have actually been how ancient people did math. Looking it up, it seems that the ancients did have a fairly complex system for using their fingers to do arithmetic. Thus we get into the problem with our wacky Bronze Age/20th century fascism mashup. Are the authors intending to characterize Aurora as a dumb lady who has to use her fingers for basic math because this is your brain on fascism, or is she actually an educated woman using advanced mathematical techniques for the period? Jury's out! Given the context of a blacksmith setting himself on fire, I'm inclined to lean toward "general incompetence", especially as the Fatebinder and Lantry can discuss higher mathematics without calculating on their fingers at all.  : Carry on.: She taps her gauntlet to her breastplate in salute. Have a pleasant siege, Fatebinder.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 You might remember Kosma here as the merchant who sells the lightning sigil on the very first map of the game, making you a big sucker for picking "lightning magic" in character creation.  Kosma straight up tells us Harchiand Bronze is a Scarlet Chorus agent. Let's buy baby's first combat spells and get going.   Despite our clear promise of "no surrender" apparently these guys let him surrender anyway.  Drastus is, as always, wrong. Yes, this gentleman is related to Tarkis Arri, but he's falling into the same trap the Germans fell into during World War I. German high command gave the order to be more brutal to deter rebellion, this pissed off people in German occupied territories, they fought, the cycle repeats.  The Chorus is legitimately happy that we showed up because they can own Drastus.  : We'd let you take prisoners, but you can't control them! You send these 'conscripts' out on patrol and they never return, defecting all over again! I can't let this nonsense strategy continue. : The Chorus should be allowed its chance to recruit new warriors.  : If it will calm your nerves, I assure you this one won't be put on the battlefield. The mage snaps her fingers loudly, gesturing for her gang to listen. Make sure the prisoner is taken straight to the Voices of Nerat!This entire squabble could have been avoided if Mocking Blaze had opened with that, but we're surrounded by idiots anyway. Oh, wait, she did before asking us.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 There's some more stuff on this map we don't have the subterfuge to interact with right now, so we go on our merry way to Disfavored town.  I spare this guy again because he's the only reliable source of the Guarded Form rune, and we need that as a spellsword.  We don't have the subterfuge to call out Verse as a spy for Nerat, so we just awkwardly tell her the truth.  We get this dialog from the gate guards because we fought with the Disfavored in the initial invasion. We also give the Graven Ashe salute on our way in.  I'm about to piss all this favor away in the next few minutes.  Pentibor is the merchant with the ice sigil. For some reason the Earthshakers never pick it up despite casting force magic in the game. : [Lawbreaker] Might I take a closer look in one of these crates? Standard inspection procedure.  We can give the guy poo poo or steal his stuff, but why? Look, even if you are evil, this gives Tunon or Bleden Mark leverage over you. All you get is rings anyway, which are never in short supply.   Barik doesn't want to talk to us.  Ashe and Nerat are still the same whiny assholes.  Ashe. Ashe. The Tiersmen commanders can read. You don't teach your troops to read.  We're just going to ignore Nerat right now, because these two stupid idiots caused Boris to get sent on this suicide mission.  This is not bad advice, but Boris has no patience for this poo poo. : I am here to proclaim Kyros' Edict. The valley was sealed in preparation for this moment. : [Bow to the Archons.] Apologies for the sudden entrance. I've traveled long to be here.Also, we're the Governor of Lethian's Crossing? Sweet!  Well, this is confusing. I forget to hover over the green text, but Nerat's probably just peddling bullshit anyway. Note that Nerat is both praising us for delaying the Edict of Storms and spilling the beans on Verse (the only person we told about the Edict).  The first option gets us Ashe points, but that's not how Boris rolls. : I come bearing an Edict of Kyros.I was very tempted to take option three.  : In honor of your incompetence and disarray, the Edict will execute every living thing in this valley unless Ascension Hall is taken by Kyros' Day of Swords. Verse loves us telling these idiots to shove it. I was surprised to see Nerat favor, but Nerat's entire goal here is to piss off Ashe into doing something stupid in front of the Fatebinder, and we're inadvertently helping.  Edict goes off!  : The Overlord means to compel us into action, no doubt the avalanches in the mountains are part of this ultimatum. We must conquer the oathbreakers or die in failure. There is no room for error... and no other way out of this valley alive. Ashe is talking a good game about being a strategist here, but remember, when we actually get through the walls, Erenyos makes us climb them because the Disfavored troops "aren't dressed for scaling."  We don't take the option to bait Nerat into revealing that he knows the river is a trap. : Are you two daft? It is your indecision and bickering that necessitated this Edict! In fairness to Ashe here, he was just thinking out loud without sniping at Nerat, so that was kind of uncalled for. Then again, if he wasn't a lovely fascist strongman, he wouldn't be in this situation.  Look how drat whipped Ashe is. "You place the Overlord into this position," honestly. : Then enough talking. There's work to be done. : My Lord, Barik and his band have been drilled on the Echocall assault plan. The Crescent Runners should be briefing him as we speak regarding the latest enemy movements along the river. I will dispatch him at once. The Iron Marshal salutes, clapping her gauntlet to her breastplate.Wow. Remember way back in Cleopatra's playthrough, when we got to Echocall Crossing and Drastus was in command? The Disfavored literally made a last minute command swap for the Matani river operation, removing the commander who was actually trained and ready to execute the operation and putting him on political babying duty to swap in Drastus, the dumbest man currently alive. Of course, from a dumb fascist point of view it makes perfect sense. Disfavored strong, Tiersman weak, they don't have to take the rebellion seriously because under Idiot Race Theory the Disfavored will always win. Reality disagrees.  The Fifth Eye conveniently arranges for the Chorus to be far away from Trap River.  : Our soldiers clamor for battle, and at last we shall have it! Verse, we command you to continue guarding the Fatebinder - Tunon's chosen is our honored guest, and must be shown our finest hospitality. : I won't let you down, boss. He'll get through the campaign in one piece, as long as he doesn't do anything too stupid. The Chorus line makes their departure.  Ashe is aware he was goaded into stupid poo poo and so tries to regain our confidence by bitching about Nerat. It doesn't work.  He says this regardless of whether Nerat reveals Operation Trap River or not. : You've shown your worth in war, and your name has been known to the legion since the very beginning of this long conquest. So I'd ask that you join us this one last time, and help us wrap up this last objective.Spoiler: if we side with the Disfavored, we will still be doing all of the work. : If you wish to be counted among the glorious, speak with the Iron Marshal - she will direct the order of battle until we are ready for the final push into the Citadel.Ur-fascism, Eco posted:In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as “Long Live Death!”). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.  : And what of the Scarlet Chorus? How will they be helping?: I ask myself that question often. While we take the river crossing, the Scarlet Chorus should be using their sizable presence to remove the oathbreaker patrols lurking in the outer valley. : I would be honored to help. She then gives us the same spiel about how the Scarlet Chorus could use help even though they SUCK and that ends the encounter. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We'll end it here. I'm going to be speeding through a lot of Act 1 until we choose whichever Archon we get saddled with, but I do enjoy how you can put the Archon's failings into greater context on a replay.
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Apr 11, 2021 05:56
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: Thank gently caress, an adult! Please stop arguing!
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I wonder if how much people's initial impressions of the two armies is coloured by the Edict of Storms if they're the ones to proclaim it. "Go ahead and nuke em" vs "We're begging you to let us spare civilians" is a pretty stark difference.
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Apr 11, 2021 07:18
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bewilderment posted:I wonder if how much people's initial impressions of the two armies is coloured by the Edict of Storms if they're the ones to proclaim it. "Go ahead and nuke em" vs "We're begging you to let us spare civilians" is a pretty stark difference. Honestly you can get very different impressions of the armies based on where you go in conquest. If you go to Apex the Disfavored will not shut up about sparing prisoners and the Chorus want to make examples of them, you can get encounters where the Disfavored yell loudly about burning books while the Chorus ask you to give them anything they can legally have, etc. I was legitimately surprised that the Disfavored were actually cheering for me to nuke their own troops, which makes me wonder which Disfavored characters conveyed that order. Certainly not Aurora or Barik!
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Apr 11, 2021 07:40
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can we skip the bastards wound this time
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Apr 11, 2021 08:00
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Looking forward to the new playthrough. It's interesting to take a second look with more context like this. Also, do our conquest choices this time mean that the citadel with the sages in it didn't get burned down in this timeline? Or did some other fatebinder do it while we were laying down the Edict of Storms?
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Apr 11, 2021 11:25
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sunken fleet posted:Looking forward to the new playthrough. It's interesting to take a second look with more context like this. The three Edicts always get read during Conquest, two nameless fatebinders read the Edicts you didn't pick and died offscreen because of it.
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Apr 11, 2021 11:38
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The other edicts get read by your fatebinder buddies who hang out at Tunon's Court.
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Apr 11, 2021 11:46
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I'm curious to see how a caster tank works in practice. Unarmed spellsword (spellpunch) seems like it would be much better since two aspects play well with each other. Quickness is the principle attribute of unarmed which also lowers spell cooldowns. Unarmed and casters both favor light armor, but wearing heavy armor gives a huge cd penalty to all your spells. Finally, unarmed has the unique bonus of using dodge for both melee and ranged defense rather than having to spread points out between both dodge and parry.bob dobbs is dead posted:can we skip the bastards wound this time Please. Alternatively if we do go to the Bastards Wounds, just declare the entire thing heretical at the beginning. Cause gently caress that place and every poorly written moron in it. I dont know fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 11, 2021 |
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Apr 11, 2021 14:35
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Hmm. Some thoughts: 1. The Edict of Storms situation fits neatly with the Disfavored's blind trust in Kyros. From Nerat's perspective, a little warning allows for assets to be preserved and his troops can curry favor with the locals by claiming to protect them against Kyros' "murder everybody" Edict, which is a pretty nice finesse. "See, you can tell we care for you because we saved you from being collateral damage from our own leader's big attack." From Ashe's, I think it's a mix of "surely Kyros won't hurt us" and blind hatred of the people who have his daughter. If you're deluded into thinking Kyros is trying to help you, you would want the "airstrike" to come immediately and break the enemy so your forces can finish their mission. 2. On the "backup plan green:" I see several options. One possibility is when you show up and are told the Disfavored can't go over the wall as presently geared, that's the commander on the ground unhappy with "straight up the middle" orders that will lead to casualties trying to get you to do it. If the Disfavored don't like you, it's a nice way to screw you over. If they do, they're giving you the honor of the victory. This would be more believable if the Disfavored weren't obviously OK with "straight up the middle" orders in other contexts. A second is that Ashe is so disconnected from his troops in the field that he has completely unrealistic expectations for what they can accomplish. This seems far more plausible: it suggests he's bought into his own fascist rhetoric, his troops would do everything possible to reinforce this delusion, and most of the time their opposition has been so ineffectual that they can largely get away with it. The possibility that Ashe doesn't in any way live up to his reputation as a strategist and tactician is obviously there as well. But I like the idea that after becoming an Archon, he came to care more about preserving his reputation as a leader than actually being a good leader. 3. I think Nerat's pleased for multiple reasons when the Fatebinder calls both Archons out in front of other people. It does play into angering Ashe, sure. But I think there's a second, more subtle attack taking place here, because part of Ashe's reputation and nature as an Archon is tied to his supposed loyalty to Kyros. Anything that calls that loyalty into question, or suggests that the Disfavored aren't elite but are gently caress-ups, weakens Ashe's power as an Archon, especially as more and more people come to believe it. But Nerat's reputation is as a plotter and a disloyal sneak, so people hearing the same accusation leveled at him will come to believe more strongly in the things that grant him power as an Archon.
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Apr 11, 2021 16:04
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Is there a big version off the map that has everything labeled and such?
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Apr 12, 2021 01:04
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Is there a big version off the map that has everything labeled and such? The wiki has this map though it's not labelled. You an kinda see where each of the major places are, though. The Bastard City is up north, the Vellum Citadel is the one marked as being on fire (duh), Lethian's Crossing is those bits in the west, Vendrien's Well is the spire surrounded by mountains.
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Apr 12, 2021 02:53
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bewilderment posted:The wiki has this map though it's not labelled. You an kinda see where each of the major places are, though. The Bastard City is up ftfy
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Apr 12, 2021 08:26
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Having played through the entire game myself and seen an entire different playthrough as well, I do think that Chapter 1 is probably the best part of Tyranny. Obsidian has its usual strong first impression with the level of reactiveness and detail. The game loses reactivity as time goes on, only gaining a shitton of it again with the Tunon trial on the finale. And Tunon is at least a very good capper. I strutted around being the Queenslayer, and it was really fun to have the Vendrien Guard lose their poo poo whenever I appeared. The Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus made comments like 'hey go to the frontlines, provoking the Oathbreakers into blind homicidal rage is really useful'. Verse is also jealous and loves the title too.
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Apr 12, 2021 08:31
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