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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!


This is in many ways my favourite D&D-branded videogame, not just because Birthright, with its world of Cerilia, is a criminally under-appreciated setting that completely vanished after 2nd edition(it would've hosed so hard in 4th, why did you do this to me, WotC? Why did you break my heart?), but also because as a D&D game it's delightfully different.

If you played 1st or 2nd edition D&D, you knew that when your Fighter hit his 9th level he was supposed to build a fort, hang that stuffed chimaera head over the fireplace, recruit a couple hundred noble men at arms and rule a region of the land. Possibly still adventuring, but now with some goons to set up a trebuchet and huck rocks at the enemy wizard from across the county. But in the D&D videogames of whatever stripe, we never really got that. Sure, Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 kind of played around with "ooo you have a fort ooo you get to maybe have someone whittle a stick for you and also there's the requisite siege sequence," but they never really committed to being a game about PC's at that level and with those responsibilities.

Birthright went all in on that. The entire concept is that you play as characters with some shard of a divine right to rule, which gives a deep connection to the land and people, and you compete militarily, economically, politically, religiously and economically with neighbouring realms, allying with some, making war on others, and all that stuff. That's right, this is a strategy game.

We've got...



Maps!



Advisors!



Character sheets!



Oh and yes I suppose that if you want to, you can go on adventures and blow up some ogres to fund the kingdom by stealing all their stuff. But psh, who wants that? Get in, loser, we've got progressive tax brackets to fine-tune.

Ha ha, and of course we have a cool intro, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D947HqEa_vA

This will be an LP with a good deal of interactivity because there is really no railroading here. There's like a dozen kingdoms we can start play as, and each of them have two choices of ruler we can play as. On top of that there's no "canon" ending to all of this. So obviously I'll be soliciting people's votes at various points for what to do as well as who to play as.

I will also be deeply surprised if anyone actually knows this game or Birthright as a setting, so I don't really think I need any kind of spoiler policy. :v:

PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jun 19, 2023

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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 01: The Nations of Anuire
Update 02: Spreadsheets for Breakfast
Update 03: Dungeons & Diplomacy
Update 04: Barrow Mound
Update 05: Real Birthright Battles
Update 06: Double Betrayal
Update 07: "Music"
Update 08: The Tomb of Errors
Update 09: Other Ways To Win
Update 10: A Skeleton Crew
Update 11: Breaking the Rules, Breaking the World

PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Jul 6, 2022

That Italian Guy
Jul 25, 2012

We need the equivalent of the shrimp = small pastry avatar, but for ambulances and their mysteries now.
This sound ridiculously fun.

Also I guess there's going to be a lot of economy :v:

EDIT: also a quick googling led me to find someone's total conversion of the Birthright setting for 5E.

That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 17:51 on May 11, 2022

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
I've heard of Birthright in vague terms but never anything substantial.

This looks like it could be very interesting!

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




For a moment I thought they were really going to commit to the elves being on the evil side. Only for then mention that they switched sides at the final battle.

BraveLittleToaster
May 5, 2019
A D&D strategy game, now this is somethin' I'm looking forward to following.

And it's good to see you playing a better game this time around.

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH
This Gorgon fellow sounds like a reasonable freedom fighter against theocratic noble oligarchy. Let's help Gorgon

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021

Hot drat, the intro goes in hard on this being a metal concept album. Or at least the world's history is. I knew the very basic of the basics (the Blooded lines, the dead evil god being the source of monsters), but I am absolutely here to learn more about how everyone considers the elves easily-duped suckers.

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!

Cooked Auto posted:

For a moment I thought they were really going to commit to the elves being on the evil side. Only for then mention that they switched sides at the final battle.

The elves were also less on the "evil" side and more on the "gently caress humans"-side.

Ahem, so the way the lore goes is that the humans we can play as are the ancestors of refugees from a continent to the south that was once connected via a land bridge, after the majority of the population there began to worship Azrai and were generally a real bunch of pricks. Moving in, they find that they get along with the dwarves(who in Birthright are very elemental, practically made from soil and stone), but, after a brief honeymoon phase, the human settlements start encroaching on elven lands. The elves and humans get into a war and, as a result of the elves being literally too arrogant to have clerics, humanity has an advantage in the form of divine magic and end up taking over most of the continent except for the deep forests. The elves are not happy about this and, when Azrai promises them a chance for revenge, they happily sign up to gently caress over their new neighbours.

It's kind of a "no one is right"-situation because the elves clearly didn't want to share too much land with the refugee humans, but at the same time the humans also seem like they didn't need a lot of prodding to start firing arrows at the elves.

Even now, most elves do not like humans and Rhuobe, mentioned in the intro, is the leader of a revanchist elven fascist movement.

https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/purplexvi/birthright/

If anyone cares, I did a review for the FATAL & Friends thread way back in 2012 of the Birthright setting. That'll contain a lot more lore and stuff, though we're only dealing with the southwestern ~40% of the continent in this game, so it's not all relevant.

HerpicleOmnicron5
May 31, 2013

How did this smug dummkopf ever make general?


I love this game to bits and pieces and I can't loving remember a single thing about it other than it having the funniest kiting I've seen in a strategy game. Something about the animations just always tickled me. Also, was there some mage you could hire who had a bag of holding, which was really powerful? It's been way too long since I've touched it.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


'That stuffed chimera head'?!
Did you split them among the party?
:mad:

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


If Purple ever stops posting LPs they'll drown.

SIGSEGV
Nov 4, 2010


By popular demand posted:

'That stuffed chimera head'?!
Did you split them among the party?
:mad:

Classical Chimera has only one head worth mounting on a wall, the other one being the snake's head that's on the tail.

That was one hell of an intro, looks fun. Play elves, gently caress humies.

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


Welp, this looks interesting.

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."
You're telling me someone looked at D&D and said "this doesn't have nearly enough math and bookkeeping"...


besides me? :swoon:


I've read a bit about Birthright in the past and it always sounded rad as hell, but I didn't know they'd made a video game based on the setting. Looking forward to seeing how it plays. If the controls aren't too stiff/unintuitive (the primary downfall of older PC games for me), I may pick it up, myself, even.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
I really enjoyed the F&F writeup for this setting, it'll be neat to see how any of it translates to a PC game!

AtomikKrab
Jul 17, 2010

Keep on GOP rolling rolling rolling rolling.

This is going to be good

Crepuscule Adepte
Feb 21, 2008

Why is my hair purple? It's from the blood of everyone that lost a bet against me.
Ah yes, I have fond memories of this game. In particular, I have particularly fond memories of playing Sielwode, antagonizing the Gorgon's Crown forces right next to me, and keeping them locked down and unable to do a thing to harm me with the power of Ward.

...And also using a combination of spells to allow me to instantly complete quests by just teleporting to the objective, taking it, and leaving.

...I cheesed this game a lot, yes.

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 01: The Nations of Anuire



Alright, let's boot the game up and see what we get.



Obviously a main menu. Before starting the game, it's strongly recommended to check the Options since there are a lot of gameplay things in here.



Like, for instance, how many victory points we need to win(we'll get into what actually gets us victory points once we start the game), "description style" should absolutely be switched from "simple" to "AD&D" because we're civilized in this household, not some sort of hidebound savages who need translations between us and the Gods' own language, Thac0.



Setting adventure combat to "turn-based" is also a necessity for maintaining sanity because it is wild and chaotic even with it being turn-based. Completely deranged, in fact.



For anyone who doesn't have prior experience with AD&D, or specifically with Birthright, I would recommend starting on Simple or at least Advanced play. These aren't difficulty options as such, but rather they determine the amount of detailed fiddlery we get. On a given turn we have six different actions we can take in the Basic version, ten in the Advanced and 18 in the Expert. I'll be playing on the Expert because I am a cool and elite gamer.



Now, the fun part: picking which nation to play as. Not all of them are open to us, for some this is obvious, for instance the Gorgon's Crown is run by the setting's big bad and the nations of Markazor and Mur-Kilad are his direct vassals. Others are run by insane monsters, like the Spiderfell or Rhoubhe's domain, or have "complicated" politician situations like the true heir being on the run from a manhunt led by the dude who usurped his father's crown. You know, cool fun normal things. We still have plenty of options as it is, though. I'll be going through them from the top and moving mostly counter-clockwise.



Dhoesone

Dhoesone is a border nation, a bulwark between the "civilized" southwest and the rougher northwest of Cerilia. They're also very metropolitan in that they've got goblins, elves and humans as citizens. Something worth nothing about Birthright is that goblins are treated as people, not monsters. They have their own cultures, nations and politics and are as sapient as any human, elf or dwarf, even if their culture does tend a bit more towards being backstabby and infighty. Humans get to have plenty of that, too, though. Gameplay-wise, Dhoesone has the advantage of having Tuarhievel between them and the Gorgon. They also start out allied with both Tuarhievel and the nation to their southwest, Thurazor.

Like all nations, they have two starter options. One of them is... a bit embarrassing because yeah, this is from the era where you can't have a girl in a fantasy setting without looking like she's headed to a fetish convention. Thieves in Birthright are also the setting's capitalists, experts at working with Guild holdings(which in your own territory are legal enterprises, and in enemy territory are often illegal smuggling operations), so they're not bad choices. Worth noting is that she doesn't have a race listed anywhere, instead she has "Anuirean." This is because in Birthright, human ethnicities work like races do and they have distinctly different stat modifiers as a result. In this game I believe we only get to see Anuirean, Brecht and Khinasi ethnicities. Our other option is a mage and mages are interesting in Birthright. In part because they get to act like battlefield artillery and trivialize adventures, but also because having a mage(or cleric) as a regent means you get to cast realm spells which range from blessing provinces to raising legions of skeletons(skeleton infantry legions are by far one of the strongest options in the game. When I played pen-and-paper Birthright they were practically impossible to defeat without magic unless you crashed heavy cavalry into them).



Tuarhievel

Tuarhievel is elven and, uh, almost as bad as Rhuobhe. They're haunted by the ghosts of all the humans they've killed and used to keep goblins and kobolds as enslaved second-class citizen. Kind of not cool, there. They're rough to play as because they start out being the Gorgon's neighbours. They're actually allied with both Rhuobhe and the less dickheaded elven nation to the east, Sielwode.

Both of Tuarhievel's regent options are pretty strong. It's worth noting that their bloodline ratings are also higher than Dhoesone's. Bloodline ratings can be improved by finding artifacts on adventures or spending strategic-level stuff to boost it. The stronger your bloodline, the more themed powers you get, some of which make you stronger on the overworld and some of which just boost your dungeoneering stats. In the pen and paper game they vary from the cosmetic to the overpowered, but they're all good in the PC game and you absolutely want a higher bloodline rating if you can get it.



Cariele

Cariele is a strip-mined libertarian hellhole. For as small a state as they are, they are in a nasty position next to Tuarhievel, Dhoesone and the Gorgon's client state of Markazor. They have no allies or vassals.

I don't believe alignment affects much, mechanically, in the game, but I like that Birthright accurately identifies what libertarians are like.



Talinie

In the pen and paper game, Talinie is one of the nations recommended for new players since it's not currently locked in any violent life-or-death struggles and it's easy to slot PC's into the domain if you cut out the existing rulers with a pair of scissors. Having both a priest and a wizard for starting options, they have no poor choices, and their main issue is that all their neighbours are relatively strong, preventing them from having an easy target.



Taeghas

Taeghas starts out as the corrupt vassal state of Avanil to their east, and in addition to that have the issue that their rulers start out pretty weak, level-wise. With Brosengae to the south also Avanil's vassal, their only early target is going to be Boeruine to their north, which isn't an easy fight. They also have practically no holdings except for Sources(mage holdings), which is great, but won't make for a lot of money or ability to suppress revolts.



Brosengae

Brosengae is even more locked in than Taeghas, but has more competent rulers and, rather than having lots of Source holdings, instead have a ton of Guilds, which means that even at a third of Taeghas' size, they're still earning more per turn.



Tuornen

The only nation located more centrally than Tuornen is Alamie, and this offers them a lot of potential targets to pick on that no one would miss. Rhuobhe and Endier are two minor states right next door, one is ruled by fascist elves whose only allies are across the continent and Endier is a one-province nation whose main advantage is having lots of money. Of course, having lots of neighbours also means that they border Boerune, Avanil and Alamie which are all large enough to give them problems.

With practically no holdings even inside their own borders, however, they have to fight even to just own their own lands.



Alamie

Alamie's situation greatly resembles Tuornen's, except with even less room to break out and even less control over their own nation. Probably their best choice is an early war against Endier who controls most of the holdings inside their nations to crush it and retake control over their own lands in a lightning strike.



Endier

As a kid I always played as Endier. Firstly, you get Caine as a potential regent and he whips rear end, one of the toughest starting mages available which trivializes a lot of overworld and dungeon stuff. Secondly, with only a single province it's easy to learn the ropes with them. Now, they don't obviously have a good way to expand, but I found that if you declare war on the Spiderfell to your east, you have a decent chance of stomping them and using them as a stepping stone to the smaller provinces to the southeast along the coastline, like Medoere and Ilien. Also note that they're only one province but contain eleven guild holdings, which means they've seriously franchised out to other nations.

Their lore is that someone once won a riddle against the titular Spider of the Spiderfell, which made the spider A) go insane and B) grant him the territory that's now Endier as a wish.



Diemed

Diemed is comparatively large, and in a decent position to stomp Endier and the Spiderfell then start the roll that Endier would otherwise be free to engage in.



Medoere

Medoere is largely Better Diemed, with a priest instead of a mage for a regent option, and allied with both Ilien and Roesone. Canonically, Ruornil, the new deity of the moon has smote the armies of Diemed with orbital lasers when they've hosed around too much, on account of Medoere's ruler being a priestess of Ruornil.



Ilien

Ilien is interesting by virtue of being one of the few nations whose ruler hasn't conquered it, stabbed the old ruler or inherited it. Instead, Ilien lost its ruler and then, in a rare event, the world simply chose Rogr Aglondier as a competent and trustworthy person who was capable of ruling his fellow men justly. He's just a genuinely nice person and thus completely unsuited to ruling a nation in the setting of Birthright. Their main problem is that they're kind of blocked in by their own allies at the start of the game.



Roesone

Roesone is a pretty safe start, one of the most militarily competent nations we can begin as, with the relatively weak target of the Spiderfell just next door and with three allies(Medoere, Ilien, Aerenwe) backing it up that aren't on the far side of the continent.



Aerenwe

Aerenwe's main advantage is starting with a relatively powerful regent no matter which pick they go for, and their alliance with Roesone. For their size, they have one of the smallest starting militaries in the game and practically zero holdings on their own territory.



Elinie

Most of the rest of the southwest of Cerilia is Anuirean, which is a sort of generically Western European Fantasy thing. Meanwhile, Elinie is Khinasi, which makes them sort of generically Middle Eastern. For its age, though, Birthright is pretty good about not making the Khinasi racist stereotypes or anything. They're just Middle Eastern flavoured in their naming, aesthetics and a few touches about their culture, like putting great value on hospitality.

Despite starting with Paladins for their regent options, which are rare and tough, Elinie is a "hard" nation because everyone it borders is pretty big and tough... and once again outsiders own most of their infrastructure.



Coeranys

Coeranys is an odd duck. It's labelled as "easy" despite having extremely low-level rulers, practically no army and really only temples for their internal holdings, they also border the easternmost nation, the Chimaeron, which is ruled by an insane, shapeshifting Awnsleighen and is easily a potential enemy.



Sielwode

Sielwode is deep in it. Despite having an insanely powerful mage regent as an option, they have only a mediocre starting military and a poor economy for raising more... and they border both Markazor and Mur-Kilad. Like Tuarhievel, they're allied with the other elf nations by default, those being Tuarhievel and Rhuobhe. The latter is unlikely to be any assistance, but Tuarhievel could help pull their Sielwode's rear end out of the fire if the Gorgon and his allies started some bullshit.



Baruk-Azhik

Lastly, the only dwarven nation in the game, Baruk-Azhik. They start out well-defended, with a strong army and a powerful economy. They have no allies, which would just mean someone to split the winnings with, and their regent options are tough as nails.

But wait...

This isn't all of Cerilia, is it? No, we're only seeing about a quarter to two-fifths of it. All of Cerilia...




excuse the lovely paste job, it was hammered together from screenshots from eight badly scanned pages in a .PDF

What we're missing out on are... the Germanic Brechts, the noble viking Rjurik, the grim Vos from the icy north who ride furred dragons and other such neat things. Which is a shame, I always thought the Vos were cool.

In any case...



The skeleton warrior decrees that you must vote for which nation I'll play as! I'll probably do multiple runs, especially since I'm pretty likely to get my rear end kicked while I find my footing again, especially if you guys drop me right into it as Brosengae or something of that sort. :v:

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!

Crepuscule Adepte posted:

Ah yes, I have fond memories of this game. In particular, I have particularly fond memories of playing Sielwode, antagonizing the Gorgon's Crown forces right next to me, and keeping them locked down and unable to do a thing to harm me with the power of Ward.

...And also using a combination of spells to allow me to instantly complete quests by just teleporting to the objective, taking it, and leaving.

...I cheesed this game a lot, yes.

Ha ha, I almost hope I don't get a Wizard ruler voted for my first run because yes, this game is very cheeseable if you know what you're doing.

BraveLittleToaster
May 5, 2019
My vote for this is Medoere. I see mention of a moon deity smiting people with orbital lasers, I am compelled to vote in that direction.

Even if they might not have access to orbital lasers here.

Edit: Suris Enlien would be my ruler preference there.

BraveLittleToaster fucked around with this message at 02:47 on May 12, 2022

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
Elinie, Kalilah. [Presumably] badass Arabic lady paladin as a leader? Sign me up!

Cythereal fucked around with this message at 02:46 on May 12, 2022

Crepuscule Adepte
Feb 21, 2008

Why is my hair purple? It's from the blood of everyone that lost a bet against me.
I'm going to go for the "challenge" options, myself. Alamie as Carilon was honestly one of my favorite runs in the game, so that's what I'm voting for first.

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


I vote for Taeghas or Tuornen. Or if we're going by looks for some reason, the rulers of Medoere have kick-rear end robes.

idhrendur
Aug 20, 2016

Dhoesone

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!
Oh, poo poo, I guess I should've said, if you have any preference for which ruler of your chosen nation I should be playing as, please add that to your vote.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
My vote is for Baruk-Azhik. They're the only dwarves, they're not major assholes, and if you're doing multiple runs, then we may as well do an easier one to start, judging by the game's judgement (which could be skewed I know, but whatever). So early is the most opportune time to see Dwarf supremacy out of the combination of factors.

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Cythereal posted:

Elinie, Kalilah. [Presumably] badass Arabic lady paladin as a leader? Sign me up!

Agreed! Elinie, Khalilah

Arcanuse
Mar 15, 2019

Coeranys. :getin:
no ruler preference.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

PurpleXVI posted:

The skeleton warrior decrees that you must vote for which nation I'll play as! I'll probably do multiple runs, especially since I'm pretty likely to get my rear end kicked while I find my footing again, especially if you guys drop me right into it as Brosengae or something of that sort. :v:

Sounds like a good reason to vote for Brosengae to me! Preferably as that Priest fella

Xerophyte
Mar 17, 2008

This space intentionally left blank
Elinie, Khalilah because it's fun being different, and trade nations are good to start. As I recall one of their main challenges are that a lot of their internal guild (I think?) holdings are owned by some opposite alignment jerk who hates you and tries to undermine you constantly, which is hard to sort before the baddies next door show.

High school me usually went with the dwarves. Mainly because dwarves but they're not bad as a starter nation and you have some nice nearby conquest targets. It was hard to eat enough good stuff before The Gorgon came rolling through elfville to murder you without you having access to Legions of the Dead or whatever the absurdly good ritual was called, though. The elf nations are probably easier even if they border him directly, just because they do have access to lots of magical bullshit.

Also also I think there was some way to take control of the "extra" nations if you want to? I distinctly remember playing as the Manslayer at some point.

Shei-kun
Dec 2, 2011

Screw you, physics!
Medoere and Suris Enlien because rumors of orbital moon lasers are a great way to start off a campaign.

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!

Xerophyte posted:

Also also I think there was some way to take control of the "extra" nations if you want to? I distinctly remember playing as the Manslayer at some point.

The game comes with both a "scenario editor" that allows you to change the starting layout of the map(but not the underlying map and provinces, as I recall it), and change which nations are playable, a character editor and an adventure editor.

Considering that it was released in 1997, that's a pretty bold embracing of user-created content, wildly ahead of its time as well. If it had released just a few years later(in a less crash-happy state, possibly...) we might've seen a PlanetBirthright site or something to hold map and adventure downloads. Especially since someone told me that the adventure mode is apparently running on a modded Doom engine, so who knows what the hell people could've done with it. :v:

Googling around a bit, apparently it's actually possible to just flat out toss .WADs into Birthright and use them as the foundation for adventures, and vice-versa edit Birthright adventures in the Doom WAD editor of your choice.

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."
Play as Tuornen and sing your way to victory as a Bard.

I'm wondering what effects each class has, by the way. You describe Thief and Wizard, but what of Fighter or Ranger? Do Paladins get abilities that Fighters and Priests don't? Most importantly, can Bards actually employ their music for the sake of the realm?

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021

Ilien, with Rogr. A genuinely nice person who wasn't even supposed to be here? His success or his failure would be hilarious either way.

sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





Cythereal posted:

Elinie, Kalilah. [Presumably] badass Arabic lady paladin as a leader? Sign me up!

:same:

sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





I remember receiving a beta test version of this game and it worked extremy poorly because CD-Rs were very unreliable at the time.

Sierra never asked me to beta test anything else after that.

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:

Play as Tuornen and sing your way to victory as a Bard.

I'm wondering what effects each class has, by the way. You describe Thief and Wizard, but what of Fighter or Ranger? Do Paladins get abilities that Fighters and Priests don't? Most importantly, can Bards actually employ their music for the sake of the realm?

Clerics: Can cast Realm-level divine magic, get a free Agitate action per turn and can do Investitures as free actions.
Mages: Can cast Realm-level divine magic and gently caress around with Sources/Ley Lines for those purposes.
Thieves: Get a free Espionage action per turn.

Additionally, classes gain Regency Points from different things.

Everyone gets it from territory, but Thieves, Rangers and Bards also gain it from Guilds, Warriors, Priests and Thieves from Law holdings, Mages from Sources, Paladins and Clerics from Temples, and lastly Thieves also get it from established trade routes.

Fighters may seem to get the short end of the stick, here, with their main advantage being that they are by far the hardest class to kill. But this plays well to attempts to use them on the field in battle and for a strategy that relies on adventuring a lot, since it means you can be more casual about it without risking annihilation. In the pen and paper game, Fighter Regents also start with an elite bodyguard, even at level 1, which they can even bring with them into adventuring scenarios(though if they do so, they split their XP with their bodyguards). They also get full Regency Points, which we'll get into the uses of when the LP starts proper, while Priests and Thieves only get half RP. Law holdings also make it easier to crank up the taxation in provinces without them getting rebellious, so while a Fighter is unlikely to hold Guilds or Temples that generate extra money, they're likely to control the Law in the provinces they do control and to thus be able to squeeze more gold out of them.

In the pen and paper version, Law holdings can also attempt to "steal" money from other rulers in the same provinces, slurping up some of their delicious taxation or guild income, though it is considered notably rude, and I'm not entirely sure if they included this rule in the videogame.

PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 04:14 on May 12, 2022

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."
So, it looks kinda like Bards are just bad Thieves, at least as far as the management layer is concerned. That's kinda disappointing. I figured they might at least get some realm-level magic, or unique diplomatic options.

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sb hermit
Dec 13, 2016





Also, I never knew that it was based on D&D. Or that it was actually released (I thought it was vaporware).

Also, how come we're in this fantasy medieval setting in a Sierra game and there's no one talking about a marriage of convenience or necessity? Or love? Is there even a princess??

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