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JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever
I know a few sites that specialise in releasing 'easy' abandonware, which are games not available elsewhere that have been configured to run easily on modern systems, but I haven't seen this game on any of them. I did see it in one place, but it was probably just the disc image.

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EricFate
Aug 31, 2001

Crumpets. Glorious Crumpets.

PurpleXVI posted:

I'd hate to spoil anything, but let's just say that I could no longer distinguish between actively malicious design and just buggy, broken design.

I think it is equal parts malicious design and overly ambitious incompetent design.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

EricFate posted:

I think it is equal parts malicious design and overly ambitious incompetent design.

I favour the latter, in this case. The former is there, but I think that it is an inherent quality of D&D from that era. I'm also assuming that you mean 'malicious' in the sense of intending to make suffer rather than cheeky & pranksome. For the latter, I strongly agree. So much about this game screams a dev team who wanted to make a game that did a bunch of things well and failed because of a lack of experience/will/time/publisher support etc. I can respect that much more than a game that was designed to be soulless cash-in rubbish - there's a lot of that about these days.

Unoriginal One
Aug 5, 2008

Evil Fluffy posted:

Or go with the 2.5D games and play something like Stone Prophet.

This and Wake of the Ravager drove me up the wall back in the day thanks to late-game run ending bugs; Ravager to some screen transition stuffing the party under the run of some merchant on an otherwise unconnected map, Prophet for unavoidably blackscreening when trying to play a certain cutscene.

PurpleXVI posted:

U4 through 7 have already been done better by Nakar than I could ever hope to, and God no, I will not touch U8 or U9 with a ten-foot pole. U9 has in any case been tackled by better folks several times, and U8... unsurprisingly every attempt has imploded in some way.

Unsurprising, best as I can recall 80% of the game is largely aimlessly wandering underground until you randomly chance into hitting something plot important, be it a new location or a plot critical macguffin.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Unoriginal One posted:

This and Wake of the Ravager drove me up the wall back in the day thanks to late-game run ending bugs; Ravager to some screen transition stuffing the party under the run of some merchant on an otherwise unconnected map, Prophet for unavoidably blackscreening when trying to play a certain cutscene.

Unsurprising, best as I can recall 80% of the game is largely aimlessly wandering underground until you randomly chance into hitting something plot important, be it a new location or a plot critical macguffin.

I only played Menzo and Possession and didn't have any major bugs, so I didn't know about Stone Prophet, the last one. Are there any fan bugfix patches for any of those games or, especially the Dark Sun games? I'm especially afraid to replay the DS games due to bugs.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
poo poo, now you got me thinking. Maybe there's room for another Baldur's Gate LP...

I guess I have a few games to poll y'all about when you're eventually tired of seeing me cry about this one. :v:

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


Just get one of those nice and cozy 4X / Heroes like, like King's Bounty I tihnk it was called, or those Warlock 4Xs, just take a little break.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

PurpleXVI posted:

poo poo, now you got me thinking. Maybe there's room for another Baldur's Gate LP...

I guess I have a few games to poll y'all about when you're eventually tired of seeing me cry about this one. :v:

Looking forward to when you start your next LP in 2028! :getin:



...I assume if you end up doing a 'break game over knee' run after this one you'll probably do so without having to touch adventure mode unless the game requires it.

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010

JustJeff88 posted:

I only played Menzo and Possession and didn't have any major bugs, so I didn't know about Stone Prophet, the last one. Are there any fan bugfix patches for any of those games or, especially the Dark Sun games? I'm especially afraid to replay the DS games due to bugs.

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is pretty stable. Wake of the Ravager is... not.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Dallbun posted:

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is pretty stable. Wake of the Ravager is... not.

No known fan-made bugfix/stability patches, I take it sadly then?

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Dallbun posted:

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands is pretty stable. Wake of the Ravager is... not.
I actually finished Wake of the Ravager back in the day and ran into a softlock bug with Shattered Lands a few years ago.

...

Shadows Over Riva had a pretty good LP (I'm a sucker for the style) and I wouldn't mind seeing the other Realms Games LP'd. Maybe the remakes, if you can't stomach the originals? Better yet, both.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Update 08: The Tomb of Error





As per the general opinion that I should suffer more, we're doing two adventures this update... or are we?



Rogr also got some new spells but, excitingly enough, post-chargen spells are not organized by level, which seems to be a mechanical choice for the explicit purpose of making me cry. Why the gently caress, Sierra? Why the gently caress?!

In the pen and paper game, Stoneskin offers ablative armor against a random number of "mundane" attacks, here it just sets the caster's AC to a respectable 2. Disintegrate and Death Spell just kill things instantly, making them interchangeable in TGA, but in pen and paper AD&D Death Spell is intended to wipe out groups of smaller enemies while Disintegrate is for something big where you don't care about looting the body.




Malentor's Tower! The very name reeks of villainy!
IT ALSO SMELLS LIKE GNOLLS.



Since they're using the early Doom engine, TGA can't do room-over room, hence this tower is only very technically a tower, but I suppose it nonetheless feels rather tower-like.






Not knowing where to start, I head down the stairs first.






The walls slide open, exposing the wizard's dining room as I approach.



LOOK, MORE MOONING STATUES.
Those are gargoyles, Noelon.

Despite being without any hefty mythological chops, AD&D gargoyles are pretty nasty. They get a ton of attacks per round, are hard to kill, they fly and they tend to arrive in large packs. Normally they require magical weapons to hit, but as TGA has (almost) no magical weapons, this requirement seems to be waived.





They also have a neat death animation.




Stepping behind the throne closes the way out and opens a way deeper in.







The second enemy of the tower is gnolls. Gnolls are about as threatening as goblins in this game, that is to say: not very. In the pen and paper game this also tracks, they're on that second tier of monster difficulty along with orcs. It's odd that in the lower tiers of intelligent humanoid enemies, there are a lot of ones that are stat-wise interchangeable even if their aesthetics are different. They're also invariably Chaotic Evil and thus behave much the same.






The gnolls down here guard this small treasure room.




The only thing it contains of interest is a Tome of the Mage Lords, for more Realm Spells.










Another floor down is what looks like a small barracks for the gnolls, or possibly for the gargoyles.





The obvious secret door conceals a tome that gives level 1 to 3 spells and a key for the other branch.







I DON'T WANT TO PET THIS ONE.

For some reason this one poor gargoyle is stuck in the corner of the room and vibrating violently between floor and ground, I assume his sprite is vertically misaligned or something so he's actually stuck in the floor or ceiling.



Malentor had interesting taste in bedtime reading.

This is the +1 level book for evil mages. Picking it up as a non-evil character gets you a message that goes "THIS OFFENDS YOU GREATLY," but unlike in the pen and paper version, it doesn't cause level drain.




In the corner is this obvious hidden door which, if you smash your face right up against it, demands a Tiny Key to open. That gives us something to look out for, then.






This portcullis at the lowest level also demands a Tiny Key, ending further exploration downwards.




There's also a side passage that has hidden walls that can be collapsed if you're not a moron like me and miss the switch.



In my defense, this is what the loving switch looks like. Black and red on black and red.





Hm, looks like just an empty niche on this level.
Maybe we should check it out closer. Wizards are, after all, known for being tricky and full of illusions.
I'll have you know that the only illusions I employ are to hide Alliene's birthday gifts from her.
I knew it!

The landing just up from the entry looks like an innocent niche, but it actually contains a hidden teleporter that warps you through the wall at the bottom of it.





Unfortunately all doors in here are locked and demand the Blue Key to progress.







Upstairs, a forge room contains more performance-enhancing drugs for Noelon.

IF WIZARDS GET WANDS, I GET DRUGS. FAIR DEAL.



The elaborate candle next to the obvious hidden door is a Candle of Invocations that temporarily allow a cleric to cast as two levels higher. Since it doesn't allow memorizing as two levels higher and cleric spells tend to scale less terrifyingly with level than wizard spells, it's not a super exciting thing to find. In the pen and paper game, this IS allowed, and the candle can also be consumed to immediately Gate in a creature of a corresponding alignment to the candle(each candle has a set alignment and the boost only happens if the user's alignment matches it) from an Outer plane.






Oddly enough this just leads around to the back side of one of the Blue Key doors.





There's nothing special in here except a Cloak of Protection, and these are a dime a dozen in TGA.




Next tier up has an innocent niche.




And the top of the tower has a blue key guarded by a single gnoll.

You know, this place has an awful lot of gnolls for being abandoned.
Maybe the Gorgon sent his agents to search out the Hammer of Thunder ahead of us.







If that's the case, how are they behind this locked door that we have the only key for?

This guy is also guarding the Tiny Key which is about the same size as all the others, despite the name.




On the way down to use it in the basement, I also cast Detect Traps, which would be better called "Detect Triggers." It spots doors, teleporters and level transitions, as well as any floors you can move across to affect changes in the level, like the little triangle of floor on level -1 that opens the door deeper or outwards when moved across.





Look! It's just like what happened last time, clearly we must be on the right path!



Blargh.
ARE YOU OKAY?
Looks like the portcullis came down on his head and compacted his spine into a single solid rod of bone.
Hurgh.
Not to worry, he has the spare Ring of Regeneration, he'll be right as rain soon enough.






Down here the cave floor is crawling with giant spiders, which we've already met, and ogres. Once you're done beating up all the chumps and pseudo-chumps of the humanoid world, like goblins, orcs and gnolls, you can graduate to ogres. Their thing is using weapons with a massive strength bonus, unless they're female ogres who get biotruthed into having a smaller strength bonus than the men.






Let's... not go down there for now.
I TRIED TO PET ONE OF THE SPIDERS AND NOW MY HAND IS TWICE AS LARGE AS USUAL. THAT'S NORMAL RIGHT?

I loop clockwise around at first, more or less at random since I only memorized a single True Seeing for this adventure and have no idea what the layout is down here.




A couple of ogres guard some more drugs but otherwise provide no real challenge.

What is that awful noise?
And the smell! By Haelyn!
IT SEEMS TO BE COMING FROM BEHIND US.
Do you think we should turn around?



RARGH!
:gonk:
:stare:
Well, this was unexpected.
CAN I PET HIM?

So, uh, surprise! The Gorgon's hiding down here in Malentor's basement!

In the pen and paper game he is INSANELY dangerous. AC -10, almost 200 hit points, regenerates rapidly, a superb fighter, a supergenius, practically unbeatable saving throws, 40% magic resistance, needs +2 weapons to hit AND he has not one, but TWO gaze attacks. One that instakills and one that turns enemies to stone.

He isn't indestructible, but it would require a squad of high-level fighters loaded down with mage buffs to engage him in hand to hand combat to take him down reliably.

However, we don't have that to hand.




...I can't help but notice you aren't attacking us, Gorgon.
This doorway is just a bit too narrow. Perhaps if you could walk within sword reach?




GLADLY.
Oh dear, I can't bear to watch this.





...is he still alive?
He drank a bunch of random bottles from his backpack and seems to be... winning?



The Gorgon, oddly enough, turns to stone when you kill him.

COOL. I'VE NEVER KILLED A KING BEFORE.
Technically I believe he was only ever a prince.
LET ME KNOW IF WE MEET ANY KINGS.



Hm, he was guarding a lot of gold but...
...where's the Hammer? I figured he'd be guarding that, if anyone would.






The hammer's not down in the pits, either.





Perhaps if we go around counterclockwise instead?





There are levers and hidden doors and narrow passages and stuff! Surely, that must lead to the quest objective, right?








Nope... perhaps this last little hole?




Nothing there either. Now... at this point I tab out and start looking for guides which are more or less non-existent. Turns out the only previous LP'ers stuck purely to the strategic game, possibly because they were smarter than me. I spend close to half an hour running in circles and becoming motion sick when I realize it isn't here. Well, time to head back up, yes?






Surprise, jackass, the portcullis can't be raised again and the level transition trigger is on the other side. You're loving stuck down here, dumbass. You moron. You rube. You fool.

This entire basement exists purely to get you to risk a character against the Gorgon and then gain loving nothing from it. Motherfucker!

You want to know where the Hammer of Thunder actually is?








Only upside, Rogr got a ton of spells out of this that turn out to be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT later.





Remember the bedroom with the vibrating gargoyle?




Pull the hidden switch, which opens some secret stairs in the corner.





Descend, pull another switch, you've now got the Hammer of Thunder.




I give this thing to Noelon so he can 360 noscope anything I don't like the looks of from across the map.

THIS WAS WORTH RISKING MY LIFE IN A MOLDY BASEMENT AGAINST THE MOST MONSTROUS ENEMY OF ALL CERILIA.



Because I had to take two runs at this and I took one domain action before heading out, this technically ended my turn, and just to annoy me, another adventure popped up just as it did, so you guys are actually getting a triple-adventure update.




This is actually the non-fucky adventure of the three.





Seeing some actual grass and trees is nice after that tower.
I THINK I SEE A COCKROACH.



That's an ankheg, Noelon.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
A cockroach is just gross, an ankheg is gross and can eat an entire party of adventurers for lunch.

Most folks' familiarity with ankhegs is probably from that one region in Baldur's Gate 1 where they pop up and one-shot your level 2 party because you went exploring. Here they look like big cockroaches or locusts, but they properly look more like armored caterpillars.

In addition to being statistically the equal of a mid-level Fighter, they do wild amounts of melee damage(3d6) and can vomit acid on players for 8d4 damage which is more or less guaranteed to annihilate the party's thief or mage if they're hit, as well as badly mauling a cleric or fighter. Of notable interest is that they're actually described with a yearly activity and molting cycle which adventurers can use to hunt them down when they're at their weakest, and also their shells can be turned into lightweight platemail.





Gross fellas, but no match for Noelon in this game.






There are also gargoyles and this one harpy I didn't catch a decent screenshot of because it clipped halfway into Noelon when it swooped down to attack.

As an interesting fact I don't believe that harpies canonically exist in Birthright, because along with Hydras, Minotaurs, the Kraken and the Gorgon, they are instead Awnsheg, inheritors of Azrai's cursed blood, that are represented by a single cursed individual.

Unexpectedly, core AD&D harpies are actually a save-or-die enemy since they have a song they can sing(even while attacking!) and anyone who fails a save against it just runs over to the harpy and goofily stands there even if the harpy is currently yanking their heart out of their ribcage.







There's a level transition at the bottom of the stairs, predictably, in the "main" section of this short-ish adventure.




This layer is remarkably big, and you could probably get properly lost here without a map, especially thanks to all the curving walls. Thankfully I have a map and this area also doesn't demand we pick up any keys, so we can more or less beeline for the north section which is obviously going to be where what we want is hidden.





I really had no idea Cerilia had so much magma so close to the surface.
I suppose once you've got the demonic statues and piles of skulls, magma is the only way left to identify yourself as a monstrous villain.




As I head around the pit and continue up the left side of the map, I get ambushed by what looks like a half-deleted version of Noelon's sprite. This is a Wraith. Wraiths are Spectres that will make your players only tar and feather you rather than guillotine you, as they "only" drain one level per attack.






It's otherwise a very uninteresting dungeon for the most part. Just caves, magma, caves, magma, caves, magma.










Head over to this little chasm, hop up the ledges, find the evil lair of the "lich"(it'll turn out to be another Spectre despite the adventure description).







Pull the lever, enter the back room, collect all the wizard books, don't fall into the unfenced lava pits.






A door on the right hides the end boss, who eats a few Turn Undead casts until he melts, and then I head for the adventure objective.






This is an EXTREMELY handy item. It would be insanely busted in a tabletop game, too, any wizard carrying this would be the target of every assassin not just on Cerilia but from every plane known to sapients.

Barrow Hill was absolutely the dullest adventure yet. Extremely straightforward, not very dangerous, not even interestingly bad. Let's get on to the SECOND main event.





Of important note is that Rogr learned Knock from either one of the tomes at Malentor's or in Barrow Mound. Being clairvoyant, I memorize a couple of those and thank God that I did.




Mechanically, what's interesting here is that rather than making the tower multiple discreet .wad's, it's just one .wad but using the stairs teleports you to another "floor" instead, which is theoretically a smoother way to do it. Note the theoretically.





Is someone else noticing something strange about this place?
Indeed, the air is full of sinister vibrations-
I AGREE, THE SOUNDTRACK HERE IS REALLY BANGIN'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzRDAoX043U




It feels like annihilating them with the Hammer of Thunder from maximum range is unsporting.
THESE ELVES PEEL HUMANS FOR FUN. I DON'T FEEL LIKE BEING SPORTING.

The Hammer of Thunder is just a "click and something dies"-button against most low-tier enemies, and it largely replaces Noelon actually using his sword in most cases since it does 1d10+5 damage compared to his basic 1d8 sword.






At least stop yelling that every time, Noelon.
YELLING WHAT?
"Boom! Headshot!"





Coming into the basement of Rhuobhe's tower shows off something new that I didn't even know the engine could handle. And which I'm still not sure the engine can handle. Monster infighting! This skeleton and elf are flailing at each other, but as far as I can tell they would probably have kept doing so for an hour or more if I left the game to chill there, so I have to intervene.





NO KILL-STEALING.





Otherwise the only thing of interest in the basement stables that require you to lead your horse through half the tower to get to the exit, is that you can hop on some hay bales to find a spellbook and a wand.





Otherwise, it's a dead end, so I loop back to the entrance and move straight forward into the "entry hall."





The main doors in here are both locked, one with a White key and one with a Stone key.





The rooms down this hall contain a few more drugs and...

Rhuobhe's housekeeping service is really slacking, look at that stain!
I don't think that's a stain, that's a clue!

...yeah, the big arrow on the floor is a hint. :v: One of the few dungeons which bothers to actually give us any rather than just misaligned/special textures.





It leads us around behind some skeletons and, interestingly, they don't activate as we approach from behind. It seems enemies in TGA actually have a 180-degree "vision" range, rather than a 360 one. Neat! This means Noelon snipes them without even being attacked.




Boom. The pillar in the center is activateable but also requires a Stone Key.





It eventually loops back to where we started, so I head back to the winding stairs in the southeast corner of the first floor, the one on the way to the stables.




When you get "teleported" to another floor, the teleportion is incredibly misaligned vertically meaning that you instantly drop, in this case enough to actually cause falling damage to Noelon. What the hell, Sierra?





Besides a large, roaring fire, the first floor off the ground is mostly just a looping corridor all the way around the edge, lined with rooms on the inside.




Some of them generic rooming for Rhoubhe's goons.





Others large and fancy for his lieutenants. The weird purple thing is supposed to be a plant, according to the UI.






While looting another room, I find some more Gauntlets of Dexterity which DO work, so it's not that they couldn't do stat boosts, just that someone hosed up making the Ioun Stones actually apply theirs.






The staircase in the northwest of the first floor doesn't actually lead further upwards, but downwards into a separate section of the ground floor instead.





While checking the rest of the first floor, I also discover that in addition to Stone and White keys, I'll need to find Blue and Green gems. I think this is the first adventure that's demanded so many keys of me before I've even found one.





The room at the center of the first floor is a grand staircase leading upwards to the top floor. I reason that it'll probably lead to Rhuobhe and one last key that needs using to get to the quest objective, and thus decide to put it off until I've exhausted all other options.




NICE DECOR. RHUOBHE HAS STYLE.
It would look nicer without the dead and bleeding elves everywhere.
THEY WERE PREVENTING ME FROM PROPERLY APPRECIATING THIS FINE FIREPLACE.






Noelon! Get off the table!
I'M SORRY, I SAW AN ELF, I GOT EXCITED.



Aside from the interesting tapestry art, the only thing of note in here is that someone's being served up a Potion of Invulnerability as a beverage. It gets yoinked by Noelon, of course.



That about taps out this floor for content. Let's check what's down that second staircase.




Uh.

SO. Since this engine can't really do "round," it approximates it with polygons instead. In this case, the polygon for the stairs and the polygon for the central pillar don't line up, and are in fact far enough apart that it's possible to slip between them into a couple-of-pixels-wide gap.


THIS IS STRANGE AND DISCONCERTING, HOLD ME.
No. Dad, what's going on here?
Either this is a fiendish magical trap or I shouldn't have listened to you when you told me not to have that second serving of dessert yesterday, hold on.




Thankfully, casting Fly allows Rogr to rocket the party out of the gap and into the isolated section of the ground floor.




At first glance it just looks to be more of what the first floor had, but there are some SECRETS to uncover.




A secret door in the corner conceals a switch.




Pulling the switch drops away the floor in one of the nearby corridors.




Dropping down rewards you with skeletons and the White Key, as well as a potion of Flight. Though it's not necessary here as the corridor outside actually serves as an elevator to carry you up and down if you're not impatient.






Eventually the corridor loops around to the back of one of the doors requiring a Stone Key and I'm forced to loop way around to test out the White Key I found which seems to just open the way to two bedrooms and a shortcut between the first and ground floors. So it's time to see what awaits on the top floor...







What a lovely day to be an elf. I sure hope no one sneaks into my tower and steals my most valuable possession.

Rhoubhe is, like the Gorgon, an extremely tough humanoid opponent, though possibly even tougher for many parties. Firstly, he requires +3 or better weapons to hit and is completely immune to arrows and crossbow bolts. He also wears elven plate and is a Fighter/Mage, which allows him to cast spells even while fully geared up for combat, just in case you wanted to eat a fireball when you expected to eat a sword swing. He doesn't have quite the same level of hit points, but being able to bust out poo poo like Prismatic Spray, one of those spells that subject you to multiple saves and will hurt you bad even if you make them, is potentially scarier than the Gorgon's gaze attacks to the sort of high-level party that would actually be fighting either of them on somewhat-even ground.

Good thing that this game forgot to model enemies as being able to cast spells, huh? :v:


...we must have missed a key or switch somewhere, let's sneak back down.




Um.
Er.
Haelyn preserve us.
CAN I FIGHT HIM NOW?






Humans within my inner sanctum?! Inconceivable! How did you win past my hundreds of battle-ready elves?
360 NOSCOPE HEADSHOTS
Yet another fiendish human invention no doubt, very well, en guarde!



You... you injured me! Impossible!
BEHOLD THE POWER OF DRUGS.

I had Noelon swig a Potion of Titan Strength before this, rocketing his Strength up to 25, the highest the system accounts for.



THIS SHOULD MAKE ME SOME SORT OF LEGENDARY HERO OR SOMETHING, SHOULDN'T IT?
Fine, fine, you can paint your room black.
HELL YES.






So, just one problem. There's no way down without knowing Teleport and having it memorized, and there's no way onwards without a key that we apparently need to find somewhere down there. :v:






Yeah, I would've been pretty annoyed if I hadn't had Knock memorized for this one.




...not sure what happens here. I think that maybe some of the text for this adventure wasn't properly finished. In fact it would explain a lot of this game was just tossed out of the door half-finished due to time constraints.



The Tome of the Prince is actually a pretty solid item for making someone gently caress off your territory, but in TGA, a lot of the time, you're honestly better off just annihilating whoever has holdings on your territory if they're a neighbour, as the strategic game is largely something you can trivialize if it doesn't bug out and your opponent doesn't bring purely Knights and Skeletons.



Now let's get the hell out of here.

That was absolutely horrendous, I thought I was going insane working my way through Malentor's Tower. I got motion sick, had no idea what was going on, and actually thought I had to give up on completing it until I restarted it and realized the entire "basement" level was a giant loving ruse.

I hope no more adventures pop for a bit.

Our current point tally:

15 for 5 provinces held(my one action before starting the adventures was to "Invest" Duene away from Diemed).
24 for 8 provinces held by our Vassals(Endier has 5 provinces, Medoere has 2 provinces)
4 points for our 2 alliances(Brosengae, Taeghas).
90 points for artifacts held(Dierdren's Ring, Brenna's Favor, Regalia of Empire, Scepter of Cuiraecen, the Hammer of Thunder, the Ring of Wizardry, the Tome of the Prince)

133 points out of 300 needed to win.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


I don't know why you're complaining, Noelon had a lovely time!

(for real though ahaha holy gently caress this game is held together with chewing gum)

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

PurpleXVI posted:

Because I had to take two runs at this and I took one domain action before heading out, this technically ended my turn, and just to annoy me, another adventure popped up just as it did, so you guys are actually getting a triple-adventure update.

:sickos:

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever
That was certainly a surprise encounter with the main villain.

Additionally, that was certainly some horseshit design.

Unoriginal One
Aug 5, 2008
I never bothered trying to fight the Gorgon, as he still has his Flesh to Stone gaze(or an approximation of one), and while the game has Resurrection, it doesn't have Stone to Flesh. If someone blows their saving throw, that's it, load your last save and lose however long you just spent wandering around the dungeon. Given that if you're careful you can generally scoop out most/all of the loot he's sitting on, it's easier to just skip the fight.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever
The lack of quick save in adventures would be a very good way to add tension, IF it weren't for all the janky design and metaphorica instant-death trips (and possible some literal ones too; who the gently caress knows).

Chronische
Aug 7, 2012

Did you seriously just slay the GORGON? He's all but impossible to beat even with a team of very high level warriors, being level 25+ and dual-classed as a mage level 20 or so as well as being a True bloodline Awnshegh of insane power, stats, and with basically any magic item he drat well wants on the continent! Man they really under-utilized the big name Awnshegh in this game, to their extreme detriment.

Evil Fluffy
Jul 13, 2009

Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.
I've started reading Noelon's lines in the voice of Elder Guru from DBZ:Abridged and it works far better than I expected.


...what, if anything, happens due to you killing the Gorgon? Or is it one of those "he was dead but got better" situations where the overall game just ignores when they die unless it's on a mission specifically to kill them?

PurpleXVI posted:

This is the +1 level book for evil mages. Picking it up as a non-evil character gets you a message that goes "THIS OFFENDS YOU GREATLY," but unlike in the pen and paper version, it doesn't cause level drain.

And you canjust restart the dungeon to farm these and rocket a mage up to level 20 (when you find one for your respective alignment)? While also running a dungeon that gives you an artifact to double all spell slots and not just firest level spells (like in BG and elsewhere)?" :allears:

quote:

I had Noelon swig a Potion of Titan Strength before this, rocketing his Strength up to 25, the highest the system accounts for.

What's Noelon's strength normally? I remember 25 strength in 2nd edition was +7 to hit and +14 to damage, but I guess this game works differently since I see he does 24-30 damage in the screenshot above this line.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



So... you won? The Gorgon was slain, the peasants rejoiced, the nobles kept on killing each other and their peasents?

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH
No don't let him paint his room black. You let him do that and next he'll be listening to Linkin Park and smoking cigarettes. Stand firm!

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




that was a lot of dungeon crawling


congrats on winning?

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Evil Fluffy posted:

...what, if anything, happens due to you killing the Gorgon? Or is it one of those "he was dead but got better" situations where the overall game just ignores when they die unless it's on a mission specifically to kill them?

And you canjust restart the dungeon to farm these and rocket a mage up to level 20 (when you find one for your respective alignment)? While also running a dungeon that gives you an artifact to double all spell slots and not just firest level spells (like in BG and elsewhere)?" :allears:

What's Noelon's strength normally? I remember 25 strength in 2nd edition was +7 to hit and +14 to damage, but I guess this game works differently since I see he does 24-30 damage in the screenshot above this line.

Like killing the Spider in Barrow Mound(not to be confused with Barrow Hill!), it doesn't actually affect the strategic-layer game, it's really just for bragging rights.

You can absolutely just restart the same dungeon and grab everything over and over as long as you don't grab the artifact that "completes" the dungeon. The main downside to this, though, is that each run at an adventure still consumes 1/3rd of a strategic turn, so if you spend too long at it you'll lose the overworld game. However, if you have an adventure like Caer Calin, where it consists of two .WAD's and you can actually go from one to the other without being "locked in," then you can "repopulate" the two "halves" of it as much as you like over and over while staying in the same turn.



And here's Noelon's character sheet at game start. He actually has pretty respectable stats for randomly rolled ones, assuming they are.

PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 13, 2022

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
The dungeons here feel incredibly trite. There's like no substance, except for when the dungeon randomly breaks and would force you to retreat unless a wizard is ready to pull you out of whatever is blocking you.

Given how simple the combat is, it feels like mages shouldn't even bother prepping offensive spells? Just prep all the 'anti-dungeon-break' spells so you don't get stuck and let Noelon throw hammers at people all day.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Keldulas posted:

The dungeons here feel incredibly trite. There's like no substance, except for when the dungeon randomly breaks and would force you to retreat unless a wizard is ready to pull you out of whatever is blocking you.

Given how simple the combat is, it feels like mages shouldn't even bother prepping offensive spells? Just prep all the 'anti-dungeon-break' spells so you don't get stuck and let Noelon throw hammers at people all day.

I mean, the "winning strategy" if you just want to break the game is.

A) Cast True Seeing to see the map
B) Cast Locate Object to see where your objective is on the map
C) Cast Teleport to instantly warp to it, then complete the quest a second later.

The only times this isn't an instant win are for maps like Caer Calin where your princess is in another .wad.

Mind, the more I play, the more I feel like they had higher hopes for the game and something like unexpected crunch and perhaps starting off with the wrong engine just imploded it, because some of these adventure maps it really felt like they tried their absolute best to design a cool-looking and cool-feeling area, and then everything just got let down by the mechanics.

Like Malentor's Tower, I could absolute see the idea that you arrive only to find that the Gorgon and his goons have already started raiding the place, maybe tripped some of the alarms and guardians into activity, and now you gotta stumble between them and try not to get spotted by the Gorgon OR crushed by the local gargoyles.

Just a couple of years later, Battlespire, with the actual ability to talk to rando monsters rather than just stabbing them in the face, feels like a better accomplishment of something like that(though Battlespire absolutely had its own issues), and games both before and after managed to handle better tactical RPG combat. But it feels like someone in management went "it's gotta be real-time or it won't sell!!!" and they had to clunk together something janky.

Mind, if you don't have access to the Hammer of Thunder, a beefwall Fighter or the gamebreaking spell trio, then mages loaded with offensive spells are absolutely capable of clearing most dungeons. Most enemies are low-tier enough to get wiped out by a single shot, and the higher-level mages carrying a few protective items usually don't fold like a house of cards.

Unoriginal One
Aug 5, 2008

Chronische posted:

Did you seriously just slay the GORGON? He's all but impossible to beat even with a team of very high level warriors, being level 25+ and dual-classed as a mage level 20 or so as well as being a True bloodline Awnshegh of insane power, stats, and with basically any magic item he drat well wants on the continent! Man they really under-utilized the big name Awnshegh in this game, to their extreme detriment.

Man, you should see what happens when it's time to actually break the game and the gloves come off :v:

Evil Fluffy posted:

...what, if anything, happens due to you killing the Gorgon? Or is it one of those "he was dead but got better" situations where the overall game just ignores when they die unless it's on a mission specifically to kill them?

And you canjust restart the dungeon to farm these and rocket a mage up to level 20 (when you find one for your respective alignment)? While also running a dungeon that gives you an artifact to double all spell slots and not just firest level spells (like in BG and elsewhere)?" :allears:

As mentioned, nothing but a chunk of XP in-dungeon. Beating him on the battlefield -where, as far as I can recall, he shrugs off most spells and has appropriately high combat stats- does net you something, but that may have to wait for aforementioned snap-game-over-knee playthrough.

sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016






:vince:

Shei-kun
Dec 2, 2011

Screw you, physics!
Noelon's characterization so far has been the highlight of the dungeon delves.

Also finding out how either the game clearly wasn't properly playtested or it was and the heads of the game production told the programmers to ignore the feedback because it would take too long to fix.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Just as a quick update, I'm absolutely working on the next update but it's a bit delayed due to a serious life issue called "I picked up Crystal Project and it's insanely addictive and also good and y'all should play it."

My deep apologies for everyone. :v:

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

For a brief moment I read that as "I picked up Crystal Meth". :v:

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Cooked Auto posted:

For a brief moment I read that as "I picked up Crystal Meth". :v:

safer than Adventuring in Birthright

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


PurpleXVI posted:

Just as a quick update, I'm absolutely working on the next update but it's a bit delayed due to a serious life issue called "I picked up Crystal Project and it's insanely addictive and also good and y'all should play it."

My deep apologies for everyone. :v:

A worrying recommendation given your openly displayed taste in games, but I guess I might take a look at it.

berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.

SIGSEGV posted:

A worrying recommendation given your openly displayed taste in games, but I guess I might take a look at it.
There's a difference between "Addictive because it's good" and "Can't put it down because it's that bad".

EclecticTastes
Sep 17, 2012

"Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

SIGSEGV posted:

A worrying recommendation given your openly displayed taste in games, but I guess I might take a look at it.

It looks similar to Artifact Adventure, if you're familiar with that one. That is to say, a riff on the original Final Fantasy that turns it into more of an open-world experience with an emphasis on exploration.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

EclecticTastes posted:

It looks similar to Artifact Adventure, if you're familiar with that one. That is to say, a riff on the original Final Fantasy that turns it into more of an open-world experience with an emphasis on exploration.

I'd say it's more of a riff on Final Fantasy 5, considering that a good bit of the focus, mechanically, is towards levelling your characters in different classes and then, to some extent, mixing them through passive and secondary active abilities.

It also brings in some things I don't think any FF outside of FF14 messes with, like visible Threat, meaning that managing threat to keep focus on your tank and not someone more fragile is an important thing, and multiple classes, like the Warrior, Rogue, Hunter and Scholar, have skills that directly interact with Threat(either as a "will do X if Threat is Y" or as a "will make Threat do Z").

It's extremely satisfying when you get a good ability combo and use them to dunk on a boss that should, by the numbers, still be out of your reach for quite a while yet.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Update 09: Other Ways to Win



Alright, I've finally completed Crystal Project after some sixty hours of playtime and I wholeheartedly recommend it. This LP is back on track until the developre releases the randomizer mode he's been talking about.



Things have changed a lot since the game started. When the elven kingdoms got destroyed, the Gorgon took them over. And you can see there's only a scrap of Mhoried left, that's also the Gorgon's now. Since he can't get any allies or vassals(beyond the two he starts with), all his progress comes through raw conquest.




Ilien and Endier are about five times as large as they started out, both having turned out to be unexpected military powerhouses. In the tabletop this would be an unlikely outcome, but they do both have an advantage in having high-development core provinces which are needed for producing certain types of troops.



Oh and Endier inexplicably, and without warning, chose to stop being our vassal. I have no idea why and when it happened/happens, but it happens multiple times that our alliances just evaporate for no clear reason.



loving around with the diplomatic interface a bit, I also found another issue with attempting a "diplomatic" victory, you can only demand unfortified provinces from others, meaning you have to be real patient to whittle someone down to a size where you can vassalize them if they don't start out small. Oh and then hope they don't just randomly quit being your minions out of the blue. :v:




WHY IS EVERYONE SO ANGRY AT ENDIER.
It may have something to do with their ruler being an amoral thief and capitalist, whom my dad thought would make a good ally.
I was hoping perhaps being a good example could reform him! But, nevertheless, we made a promise and we have to keep it.
How? Neither we... or for that matter Endier... share a border with Ghoere? Which makes the whole declaration of war seem very puzzling when you get right down to it.




Well, we do now. Very nice place, too, the Rhumannen, I hear they keep cows there.
I'D LIKE TO PET A COW ONE DAY.

While I wait to declare war on Ghoere next turn, so I have full actions to invade them and stop their harassing Ilien and Endier, I take a moment to look at a terrible new realm spell.



Legion of the Dead summons three(or possibly four, I forget, either way, shitloads) of skeleton troop units for 1 gold and 4 regency.



Summoning costs that just to summon ONE unit of skeletons, and it can then summon a few units of mediocre humanoids alongside. In the tabletop this is balanced by the skeletons requiring constant supervision, and being notably more expensive. The monsters are temporary, but can be sent off on their own, and also a high-level mage(level 10+) summons Stonecrown Ogres, which are one of the game's rare four-hit units, and where skeletons have 7 defense, the ogres have 7 Melee, making them completely wild on the offense. Only something like the Knights of Cuiraecen, holy crusader type goons, offer the same offense, and even then only on their Charge attacks, while the Ogres keep it while thoroughly stuck in, giving the Ogres good odds of routing or destroying anything they fight outright.

Plus, as a second advantage, once summoned monsters "disband," they don't just vanish, they hang around terrorizing the area they're in most likely, so it's perfectly viable to crowd an enemy nation with summoned high-tier monsters and forcing someone else to deal with them while your proper, paid troops march in and do the conquering.




There's also something odd going on here. Medoere has suddenly started shooting up the charts in terms of victory points, despite being, as far as I can tell, still a three-province minor state locked in behind Ilien's provinces.

As far as I can tell, what's giving them all those points is that they've been aggressively vassalizing everyone within reach. Look at the size of their purple bar, apparently AI players are more trustworthy towards each other than they are towards the player.






Predictably, Ghoere kept pounding on the drums of war, so we had no choice but to subdue them for the safety of everyone in the region.
LOOKS LIKE KALIEN'S ON THE FIELD ALREADY, IN BHALAENE
Very brave, for a rogue. Very well, let us support him! Alliene, will you marshal the skeletons?
This still feels weird, but very well. I suppose at least it saves lives.




Blast, it looks like they're trying to get around us by attacking our skeletal troops in Tornilen!
I'm sure the skeletons can take care of themselves.





SIRE, ONE OF THE SKELETONS JUST RETURNED WITH A CARTLOAD OF... HUMAN HEADS
Oh blast, hide that before Alliene sees. I swear I should've looked closer at that spell before casting it.
At least it means they carried the field.



I told the skeletons to go door to door and tell all the peasants we were in charge now. It seems to have worked.



And here come the weight of Ghoere's remaining forces. What a day, we'll be taking to the field together with Kalien and-



SIRE, GUILDER KALIEN JUST QUIT THE FIELD. HE SENDS HIS REGRETS AND STATES HE HAD AN IMPORTANT PRIOR APPOINTMENT.
I told you, dad.




As the attacker, Ghoere gets to pick the field of battle. I think this is a random choice for the AI, but it would be a good one if they were the ones bringing battlemages.

They could easily lock themselves to a three-wide front while safe casters, or at least archers, in the "corner" positions rained hell on our troops.






As it stands, we did it to them instead, with the wider front allowing Alliene, Hubaere AND Rogr to get blasting. Unfortunately they rout before I can completely devastate them and inflict noteworthy casualties, but thankfully the AI seems to be very limited in how it recruits troops and while it could choose to be a huge pain in the rear end to take out, it often decides not to be.




...are they really doing this? We let bygones be bygones after reducing their ability for greedy aggression, and they decide they want to fight us again?
I'LL ROUND UP THE SKELETONS.




At least we're making good progress against Ghoere so far, they don't seem to be recruiting more men, so I assume we've either broken their will or their coffers.
About that...



:psyduck:

This is why I assume there's something busted about the AI's ability to recruit troops. With the provinces they have access to and their huge war chest, Ghoere could've whipped up a vast army and while we perhaps would have still dunked on their asses in the end, they might actually have accounted for some losses or slowed us down notably. I guess this is all the gold that the ruler is bringing with him to an island off the coast when he retires as a deposed tyrant or something. What the hell.



We also have a border with the Gorgon now, this appears to be the remnants of Mhoried. RIP Mhoried, you were canonically a bunch of pretty nice guys dedicated to something approaching an anarchist society.



The war against Ghoere drags on, I'd be happy to let them live as a rump state except they keep declaring war against me again. I don't really feel bad about crushing a brutal police state and liberating their poor citizens.

As I prepare to clean them up, and look at that, someone else actually contributed, there's Roesone snagging a province, a new adventure pops!




Eloe'le is the canonical deity of thievery. It never occurred to me, but when I reviewed the basic setting, someone pointed out that it could be pronounced as EL OH EL, i.e. L O L. :v: I feel like it can't possibly be intentional.



This is a comparatively low-level adventure, so I don't expect any trouble, especially considering that the preview image features a goblin, which is confirmedly one of the least challenging things the goon squad could throw down with.





WHY IS IT ALWAYS OVERCAST WHEN WE GO SOMEWHERE. CAN'T WE EVER HAVE A NICE BEACH ADVENTURE.
Maybe if someone builds a sand dungeon and forgets their legendary artifact trowel inside.
THAT WOULD RULE.



Except for the maze at the west end, the remainder of this fortress(estate? mansion?) is symmetrical and relatively logically laid out.





I was actually pleasantly surprised this door was split in two interactable sections. What baffles me a bit is that some early locations, like Elfwash Keep, had lazy doom-style sliding doors, and now most later sections have actual "hinged" doors. I wonder if it took them a while to figure out how to make it work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC6XN97vf7s

Oh and there's some music here, too. It's kind of broody and tense. It makes you feel like you're gonna round a corner or trigger a pit trap or something and it's gonna be all spiders and creepy crawlies. The occasional faint glorious tones makes me think of a desecrated temple once dedicated to a noble cause.



The first opposition is just more goblins, nothing we've seen before, Noelon paints the walls with their brains using the Hammer of Thunder as usual and I proceed to go around counterclockwise.





I really love the work they did with some of these rooms but, hm, something seems... off, here.




WOW, THESE STATUES ARE SO LIFELIKE.
They're real dwarves, Noelon.
:stare:
THIS IS CREEPING ME OUT.

Yeah, these dwarves just... stand there, watching you. I thought they were meant to be statues, originally, like how the "still" version of Gargoyles gets used for generic statues in a few places.






Strange how they aren't reacting to us. Perhaps they're paralyzed by dark magics?
THEY'VE GOT A FANCY STICK BACK HERE.
A wand, Noelon, it's a wand. Go grab it.




HEY WHAT GIVES
[angry dwarf noises]

Yeah, yanking that wand just aggroed all the dwarves. I had no idea that the game even supported that or, for that matter, neutral/friendly NPC's in dungeons. It's also possible that it doesn't and grabbing an item just "updated" the NPC AI to notice I existed and to try smashing Noelon's kneecaps to dust.



TRY TO MATCH ME, THEN DIE.
TEST YOUR STEEL.
GOOD FIGHT.



LET'S SCRAP.
AT LEAST THEY SEEM TO BE HAVING FUN.

The dwarves don't seem any stronger than goblins, which is odd since in most games they absolutely would be considered to be.






There's a little throne room next door.






No interesting loot here. It's a surprise, however, that there's no secret door behind the throne considering that there are two suspicious niches AND an oddly aligned texture.








LOOK AT THIS.
Dogs carrying the crests of noble houses, it's clearly a political metaphor of some sort.
Actually I believe it's a legend, about a witch who turned a bunch of princes into dogs.
Couldn't it be both? Legends can be metaphors, too.
I JUST LIKED THE CUTE DOGS. LOOK, ONE OF THEM IS WEARING THE SHIELD AS A HAT.



Just around the corner I see a goblin standing over the dead body of a dwarf, after having heard the clash of arms from down the hallway. This confirms that NPC's who fight each other actually do, uh, function.

Mind, it opens up some questions. Bindier is in Brosengae, a human-majority nation on a relatively flat coastline. Neither dwarves or goblins are native to the region. So what's the story here? Did the dwarves beat us to trying to recover it? Were the dwarves working with the goblins and then had a falling out? Were the goblins trying to sell it to the dwarves and then there was a double-cross of some sort? Is it a Markazor/Mur-Kilad teamup gone sour?







In here we spot a Book of Exalted Deeds, it's the +1 level tome for Good clerics, like the Libram of Silver Magic was for Good mages.



Alliene gets this one because I'm hoping to get her to Hubaere's level so I have a second True Seeing caster soonish, for those multi-.WAD maps, and so I can check the terrain if I get lost somewhere along the way.





We eventually come to the end of the loop in the upper right corner of the estate, which ends us at a door which...



Requires a key. I decide to just Knock it open, which turns out to be a good decision as I never actually find the loving Blue key anywhere in the drat place.






SWANKY. IF WE INVADE BROSENGAE I WANT THIS PLACE FOR MY OWN.
We're not going to invade Brosengae, they're our loyal allies.
So were Medoere, once...
JUST SAYING, I CALL DIBS.




This note is kind of a "clue"? I guess? For a later section? But I spent like ten minutes in this room thinking there was a crouch-accessible secret passage, and it turns out there wasn't. So in fact don't act decisively right now, in fact wait for a while.






There's another unlocked pair of double doors at the far end of the main hallway, so if you wanted to, you could run over and enter from here. Not that it would really have any inherent advantages, but in a game with more advanced combat mechanics it could have opened the way to multiple approaches.






Looping around down the "left" side of the estate, I come across a large door leading into the labyrinth on that side, as well as two goblins fighting a dwarf.





The dwarf, surprisingly, takes down both goblins, and then Noelon bashes his brain in from fifty feet away using the Hammer of Thunder. Being Good doesn't necessarily mean playing fair. :v:





Most of the back rooms just contain relatively realistic rooms full of mugs, supplies and the occasional low-quality healing potion which is equivalent to Noelon taking a two-minute smoke break while wearing his ring of regeneration.




The last room of relevance in the main section is this little chapel





A door at the back is locked, and because I strongly suspect the key needed to open it is in the "labyrinth" to the west, I decide to not Knock it open.





CAN I REGISTER A VOTE FOR CASTING KNOCK AFTER ALL
Vote noted, and discarded. This is a monarchy, not a democracy.
At least a big pool of acid is a nice difference from another magma moat, don't you think?

I pop Fly and make my way across, rather than trusting to the game's janky jumping.




The dungeon is characterized by having numerous passages which require the party to flatten themselves to get through. Considering that there's a "Reduce" spell that shrinks the party, I wonder whether some dungeons were originally intended to require that rather than merely crouching.





Lots of twisty passages, all alike. The maze effect is, however, somewhat spoiled by the fact that the player has an automap. It would possibly be less spoiled if the automap didn't also work through walls AND reveal the little crouch-requiring holes.





Fly or Levitate are kind of necessary inside the labyrinth since there are pits and lava traps which you can't just trivially jump across. I found a couple of mystery buttons with inscrutable effects that might defeat some of these, but I'm not sure.






I really have to wonder, do these gnolls live here or did they get trapped here?

At the far end of the maze are a few wandering gnolls and a small treasure room mostly notable for containing the Red Key we need for the door in the chapel back in the main structure.





:toot:

At the back of the chapel is a little neat-looking treasure room also containing the Banner of Roele.





It would be really great if troops ever actually seemed to rout in this game. :v: It feels like they may originally have intended to implement the tabletop game's strategic battle mechanics. Let's get outta here.







As we returned victorious with the Banner of Roele, we learned that things back home... were much as we'd left them. Ghoere was still constantly declaring war on us, despite their armies having been destroyed. The fortifications of Diemed's capital province had been broken down, and Mhoried had finally fallen to the Gorgon.



More bafflingly, Medoere had somehow surpassed us a favourite to the Iron Throne. It seemed like half of Anuire were their vassals now. What was going on down there?

:psyduck: They may genuinely steal the win from us at this rate. Though at least I think the Gorgon's grinding advance is depriving them of people to vassalize.



As far as I can tell, Medoere's vassals are: Aerenwe, Avanil, Brosengae, Baruk-Azhik, Endier, Rhuobhe(?! why is an elf-supremacist fascist state willingly a vassal to a bunch of humans on the other side of the continent?) and Roesone.



This kind of explains why they're growing so much in vassal victory points, it's not because they're getting more vassals, but because their vassals are generally expanding their territories right now and Medoere gets points for every territory its vassals have. I also think that's why Endier stopped being our vassal, it's because loving Medoere snagged them up as their vassal instead.



The continent also looks like an absolute mess at this point. Alamie, which used to be literally ten times bigger than Endier, first had half its territory eaten by Endier, and then the Gorgon seems to have snagged up the other half.

Our current point tally:

30 for 10 provinces held.
9 for 3 provinces held by our Vassals(Medoere has 3 provinces, Endier is no longer our vassal)
6 points for our 3 alliances(Brosengae, Taeghas, Endier).
110 points for artifacts held(Dierdren's Ring, Brenna's Favor, Regalia of Empire, Scepter of Cuiraecen, the Hammer of Thunder, the Ring of Wizardry, the Tome of the Prince, the Banner of Roele)

145 points out of 300 needed to win.

Of course, the game insists we have 210. I think I've mentioned it before, but I think full allies also count per-province, just 2 points per province rather than 3 points per, that would mean about... 35 provinces held between our three allies. That's not completely implausible.


VOTE

The two main contenders for the Iron Throne outside of Ilien are the Gorgon and Medoere. Is the path to victory...

Declaring righteous war against The Gorgon and liberating the continent from him?
Declaring war on Medoere and crushing them before their vassals can come to their aid?
Spending the entire budget to steal away Medoere's Vassals and trying for a diplomatic win?

Personally I think that war against the Gorgon would be most in character and also more likely to succeed. Plus if the Gorgon himself takes to the battlefield and we defeat him there, that's worth a fat load of victory points, too. :v:

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! KHORNE CARES NOT FROM WHERE THE BLOOD FLOWS, JUST THAT IT FLOWS! Declare war against your choice.

Felinoid
Mar 8, 2009

Marginally better than Shepard's dancing. 2/10
You've done it before, you can do it again. Punch Gorgon in his wobbly bits.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


Much as I'd like to smack Medoere and teach them their place, I agree it's most in character to take out the Gorgon.

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sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





attack the Gorgon

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