Well, the bottom line still continues to remain for me whether I'll even have enough companions to fill out a party under the best of circumstances:
Yeah, It's definitely a concern for me as well, even with an all-good party or mixed party. It's just worse with an evil party since you have zero replacements for evil companions since Larian gave us just barely enough for a full party, whereas Minsc, Gale, Wyll, Karlach and even Shadowheart (since she has a very heavily telephoned redemption arc) fit well into a good/mixed party Plus Helia if/when she shows up. Good at least has options.
Certainly a valid way to play. In BG II you basically had to play 'hybrid' parties if you were evil because there weren't enough evil party members to fill out a full party. Problem is, Larian isn't encouraging 'hybrid' parties for evil characters. Siding with the goblins looks like it'll lose you about half of your party members straight off and lose six of the eight origins as romance options, while the opposite choice only loses you Minthara as a romance option. Good players can play with whatever characters they want to and romance whomever they want, but evil players are just left by the wayside. I played through BG I and II with hybrid parties all the time, even as an evil character, that just isn't seemingly an option in BGIII.
Just as an amusing aside:
Funnily enough, it's actually so badly hung together, design-wise, that this is maddeningly simple to circumvent and creates complete non-sequiturs. On my most recent playthrugh, when I tested the minthara branch briefly, I engaged went to her with Shadow, Lae'zel and Astarion in party, and helped Minthara assault the grove, then agreed to meet her there... I returned to camp, swapped in Wyll and Gale, who had not objected due to not being there, and not left me, and then went to the druids, where I promptly betrayed and slaughtered them, with Wyll and Gale standing alongside me, and then doing most of the druid-murdering heavy lifting, with narry a complaint from either of them the whole time.
That's hilarious.
Also, it bugs the hell out of me that Larian would make such a high-consequence option like siding with the goblins so early on. Other rpgs have done 'points of no return' sequences for evil party members where you lose all of your good party members if you don't turn back (Kotor, Jade Empire, etc etc)....but those are almost always end of game scenarios. Here we have a choice that if you take, basically cripples your options for the rest of the game, and it's right at the start of the game. Basically the first significant story choice you can make.
