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Glazius posted:Huh. We're actually trying diplomacy? Or does our aspiring lord here look to join the winning side? The party will actually do diplomacy! In fact, it's even diplomacy that will work in the long run.
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:22 |
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Isn't diplomacy actually in Unspecified Services' job description? Somewhere under demon slaying and parcel delivery?
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wiegieman posted:Isn't diplomacy actually in Unspecified Services' job description? Somewhere under demon slaying and parcel delivery? Unspecified Services' Job description is basically "Other". They handle everything that isn't covered by the Army or the Government. Recon, map making, deliveries, assassinations, everything that you can't get done by sending in the army or the bureaucrats. In the (official) backstory, they folded Scimitar into them after the War to form the core irregular forces and 'adventurers', and in my LP, US got started as a means for Micah to legitimize - and claim credit for - all the good things the 1EEC did over the course of their misadventures, thus helping to solidify recognition of the Castle as the central government. And remember (near the end spoilers here) It's Anaximander who negotiates the peace treaty with Prazac on behalf of Exile, and it's considered legit by everyone.
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm curious -- with the Bless/Curse combination going, how often do you get hit in melee / by mundane ranged attacks? Those are all that armor helps you with, after all, so there's not much point in investing in more heavy armor if you're already not getting hit. Another plus with the old engines is you can mitigate some of the expense by going into combat and leaving the casters behind in a safe corner. The buffs don't have range for your party so you can top them off from across the map. They actually last a pretty good while on the whole so this drops your SP cost a lot.
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Parts Kit posted:Another plus with the old engines is you can mitigate some of the expense by going into combat and leaving the casters behind in a safe corner. The buffs don't have range for your party so you can top them off from across the map. They actually last a pretty good while on the whole so this drops your SP cost a lot. That reminds me -- I saw an Exile 1 speedrun awhile back. The party consisted of 1 melee guy and 5 spellcasters; dungeons consisted of the spellcasters buffing the melee guy up and then him making a beeline for quest objectives. A level-1 character against the entire Nephil army? Sure, he's basically invulnerable with all the blessings they'd stacked on him.
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I remember someone on the Spiderweb forums talking about a similar strategy: If you put all your skill points into Strength at level 1, it didn't matter that you had no health or weapon skill -- all the blessings meant your one character was untouchable and would completely wreck anyone in his way, and would get about 30-40 HP on the first level up. I tried it in the Fort Ganrick fight in Exile II and had a character dishing out between 25-50 damage per hit and completely destroying the nephil party. Pretty fun way to start the game.
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berryjon posted:The party will actually do diplomacy! In fact, it's even diplomacy that will work in the long run. Spoilers, geez! (I'm only a little serious. Given the way you'd been building the narrative I guessed the ending to this game wasn't gonna be 'NOW THE REAL WAR BEGINS', especially given that this game apparently ties up the trilogy quite nicely, but the thread title did sort of cast some doubt on that.)
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vdate posted:Spoilers, geez! (I'm only a little serious. Given the way you'd been building the narrative I guessed the ending to this game wasn't gonna be 'NOW THE REAL WAR BEGINS', especially given that this game apparently ties up the trilogy quite nicely, but the thread title did sort of cast some doubt on that.) The titles for the three LPs actually form a sort of descriptive arc for the whole trilogy, which is why I chose them. "Get me Out of Here!" - At that point, Art and co simply want to undo their Exile, and escape. But to do that, there are a lot of things they have to do first. "Let's Finish what we Started." - In Exile 2, they may have 'succeeded', but a whole lot of things that they did were left undone, or not complete. The securing of Exile against Empire reprisal is the foremost. "These are the consequences of our actions" - Exile 3 wraps up the trilogy by pointing out that nothing is ever really 'done'. that even though the war is over, the Empire still exists, and not everyone is happy with the current state of affairs. That state being what the actions of the two previous games have set up. I have a huge monologue sitting on my hard drive for the final boss fight that ties everything together, or so I hope.
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rodomontade posted:I remember someone on the Spiderweb forums talking about a similar strategy: If you put all your skill points into Strength at level 1, it didn't matter that you had no health or weapon skill -- all the blessings meant your one character was untouchable and would completely wreck anyone in his way, and would get about 30-40 HP on the first level up. I tried it in the Fort Ganrick fight in Exile II and had a character dishing out between 25-50 damage per hit and completely destroying the nephil party. Pretty fun way to start the game.
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Update 034 – Castle Troglo and Under the Castle![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() berryjon fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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You want "ascetic" instead of "aesthetic". And the troglos were wiped off the face of the Earth. I always liked this sequence. It's nice to have enemies that aren't united within themselves and to have a victory condition that isn't just "wipe them all out". The contrast between the troglos and the giants is interesting as well, though I know who I would pick if I had to back a side (hint: it's not the giants).
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You want "ascetic" instead of "aesthetic". And the troglos were wiped off the face of the Earth. Fixed and Fixed, thank you. Still catching edits in the core transcript. And the Troglos are nicely portrayed. I just wish there was more of them in this game, but the whole mid-game feels a bit squeezed.
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"Glowing Ones", and the Vahnatai barrier showing up around the same time? DId the Vahnatai bring back the Giants and the Trogs just to sow chaos with the humans? Mmmm. Something smells. Either one party of the Dragons, Erika and the Vahnatai is setting up the others as a scapegoat, or all three are working together to break up the Empire's control of the surface. Either way, this is getting more and more interesting.
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Based off playing with the Blades editor as a kid, enemies can belong to one of two factions. If the factions come into contact they will fight each other, unless you're in sight. For story purposes it's probably the followers of the Shamans and Khazis fighting among themselves, though I don't believe it is ever explained outright.
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Krumbsthumbs posted:"Glowing Ones", and the Vahnatai barrier showing up around the same time? DId the Vahnatai bring back the Giants and the Trogs just to sow chaos with the humans? Mmmm. Something smells. Either one party of the Dragons, Erika and the Vahnatai is setting up the others as a scapegoat, or all three are working together to break up the Empire's control of the surface. Either way, this is getting more and more interesting. There is of course the third possibility, which is that this is a framejob on the Vahnatai as well. Barring internal Empire politics, though, I don't know who has the resources to do it. Also, option B there sounds awesome - the Empire wouldn't know what hit 'em. vdate fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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vdate posted:There is of course the third possibility, which is that this is a framejob on the Vahnatai as well. Barring internal Empire politics, though, I don't know who has the resources to do it. Also, option B there sounds awesome - the Empire wouldn't know what hit 'em. Yeah, but why wouldn't you tell exile, particularly once you realised that a certain angry exile was blowing up your master plan.
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Yeah, but why wouldn't you tell exile, particularly once you realised that a certain angry exile was blowing up your master plan. Because the best way to fool your enemies is to fool your 'friends' first. Or to put another way: the more people who know who's behind the master plan, the sooner some protagonist is going to show up to ruin everything. Plans are adapted, plan makers only live once.
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Yeah, but why wouldn't you tell exile, particularly once you realised that a certain angry exile was blowing up your master plan. Art is not angry. She is at most mildly miffed that she got called out of retirement to deal with this. Angry will come later, once the full scope of the plan is revealed to her.
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It kind of feels like there would be a lot of failure states here. If you just try to murder the King, or flee the castle, does that leave the questline unfinishable?
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Krumbsthumbs posted:Either one party of the Dragons, Erika and the Vahnatai is setting up the others as a scapegoat, or all three are working together to break up the Empire's control of the surface. Or they've each separately decided to mess with the Empire, and hit upon similar ideas.
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Whybird posted:It kind of feels like there would be a lot of failure states here. If you just try to murder the King, or flee the castle, does that leave the questline unfinishable? In the worst case, you can get locked out of learning Dispel Barrier, but that spell is optional this time around thanks to all the piercing crystals. You can still go storm the castle and murder everything if you feel like it, though, and you don't even need to go to Castle Troglo to solve the plague in this area.
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Are the hard maximums for health and SP still 199/99, respectively? It also really bugs me that characters level up at such strikingly different paces. I'm sure that it's just my near-clinical OCD talking, but it does.
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JustJeff88 posted:Are the hard maximums for health and SP still 199/99, respectively? Pretty sure the health cap is 200. It's more than enough, really. This game (like most of Jeff's games) has a difficulty curve that assumes that you aren't going to do all of the content, so maxing out your character(s) is not required.
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JustJeff88 posted:Are the hard maximums for health and SP still 199/99, respectively? Max HP has increased to 250 in this game! Shocking, I know. And remember that people level up at different rates. Look at the XP values for a better idea of where people are at. Which means Art is still in the lead, but then again I designed her to be the most efficient engine of destruction I could.
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Ah, another set of excellent updates. The game has finally kicked in the higher gears, and if my memory serves me right, next up should be some really, really fun stuff.
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Glad that I didn't have to post Elhioc's stats this time. Yeah, he only has Mage 5, but the fact is that's still enough for Firestorm, AND his reasonably high armor and very high HP makes him a damage sponge, and the fact that he's immune to magic makes it impossible to slow him. Also, I never actually checked out the Shaman's quarters in any of my playthroughs, despite the fact that I HAVE gone through the rest of Castle Troglo. What's wrong with me?
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Jeff Vogel just did a reddit thing here, if anyone in thread is interested. It looks like he'll be doing the modern Avernum 3 next.
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Whybird posted:It kind of feels like there would be a lot of failure states here. If you just try to murder the King, or flee the castle, does that leave the questline unfinishable? 1.) You can flee the Castle at the start if you'd like. You can't get back in through the front gate (obviously) or complete his quest, but he doesn't hunt you down or anything. I can't remember if this actually screws you out of Dispel Barrier or not. 2.) You don't need to learn about the map to the barrier from the king. You DO need the map, but you can just pick it up straight from the giants. 3.) You can actually skip the entire quest chain (temple, diplomacy, Elhioc) as long as you're OK with relying on Piercing Crystals forever. I don't know what happens if you delay doing this quest until after you destroy the barrier though. Also, as a side note, the Glowing Ones are kinda stupid here. You do research to find out about an extinct race of creatures (nay, two extinct races, but somehow fail to learn they're mortal enemies? Really?
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wiegieman posted:Jeff Vogel just did a reddit thing here, if anyone in thread is interested. It looks like he'll be doing the modern Avernum 3 next. Jeff Vogel posted:Erika, Solberg, and Linda are the tragic heroes of the saga. They all truly believe they are doing the right thing for their homeland. And then it all goes wrong. ![]() Also Jeff saying that he's not sure he still has the source code for the Exile games ![]()
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I completely understand that the troglos have to keep up every appearance of being a threat but that's pretty hilarious all the same.
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MagusofStars posted:Also, as a side note, the Glowing Ones are kinda stupid here. You do research to find out about an extinct race of creatures (nay, two extinct races, but somehow fail to learn they're mortal enemies? Really? Sounds to me like a built-in failsafe more than anything.
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FreakyM posted:Sounds to me like a built-in failsafe more than anything. Doomsday weapons aren't supposed to fail safe. They should fail-extremely-dangerous. The Lone Badger fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Sep 17, 2016 |
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The Lone Badger posted:Doomsday weapons aren't supposed to fail safe. They should fail-extremely-dangerous. Trust me. We haven't seen the Doomsday weapon yet. Our mysterious enemy is still warming up.
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Update 035 – Karnold Province![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() * * * ![]() ![]()
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berryjon posted:The party will actually do diplomacy! In fact, it's even diplomacy that will work in the long run. Art is (re)starting a war. Isn't that, like, the exact opposite of diplomacy?
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The Lone Badger posted:Art is (re)starting a war. Isn't that, like, the exact opposite of diplomacy? War is simply diplomacy by another name, don't you know?
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berryjon posted:
ed: actually I just realized how big that map is going to get so don't bother, you'll just waste your time. ![]() Parts Kit fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Sep 18, 2016 |
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TinyPNG was able to drop the filesize from 1.7MB to 568kB. There's maybe a little loss of quality if I squint at the fully-zoomed version, but frankly it looks identical to me.
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I'll keep those in mind for next time.
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 15:22 |
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This is very much why I'm looking forward to the reremake of Ruined World, even though it probably won't be out until 2018. The game has such an original plot and drama mechanism with the waves of different plagues and whatnot, but even moreso than that it's absolutely massive. I really hope that the reremake doesn't eliminate or skimp on content and it keeps that feeling of world-spanning enormity, because it truly feels epic. I had the shareware version of Exile 3 as a lad and I never bought the full version, but even the demo was so substantial that I don't think that I ever even got to the point where I couldn't do anything else without plumping for the entire game.
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