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First up I'd like to establish that I really enjoyed it on the whole. Larian did a great job and made something that has plenty of rough edges but also a ton of charm, character, individuality and ambition. Fusing so many disparate styles (mostly) successfully was a great achievement. If they ever do DLC an expansion or a sequel I'll be interested from the start.

That said here's some nitpicks, maybe if I should have given this feedback in the beta but I wasn't able to spend that much time in the campaign, partly down to some instability and save issues.

By the middle of the campaign I'd mostly been able to research everything. Holding large amounts of the map makes it way too easy to get huge amounts of research. If this isn't tweaked in some other way there should be some kind of limits or diminishing returns to the amount of research you can gain or some very expensive research items so you don't end up sitting on huge piles of research to no end. Also getting imp favour kept giving me small boosts to research which just felt weird since by that point I'd long since researched everything I could possibly want.

Winning the campaign by conquering the capitals is problematic. The defensive boosts are so great, the enemy so fond of turtling and the capacity to just stack huge numbers of troops on one tile means that it's best to conquer the whole map and then go for the capital. When you've captured 75% of the map though there's really no losing. This also feeds the issues with research above.

In the loading screen it says fortifications are affected by the proximity of enemy armies on adjacent tiles. It doesn't say HOW though. Does keeping an army next to an enemy capital reduce fortifications (like a siege) or increase them (giving them chance to reinforce)? Either way I haven't noticed the impact in gameplay.

There isn't any visible mechanic that accounts for the fact you can just sit in chapter 1 gaining resources for chapter 2 and so on. The whole chaptering system is pretty weird actually so I'm hoping Custom Campaign doesn't use it and you just don't have a chapter 2/3.

Some of the maps gave massive advantages to the defender in the RTS portion. Mechanically I quite liked this but it wasn't obvious in the campaign when this was going to happen and I don't think it was represented in auto resolve.

The buildings were a bit weird. The Tavern and Wizards Tower were pretty clear (though the Wizards tower was rubbish) but I was never clear which cards the others provided. It would also have been nice if I could build fortifications rather than have them jut sort of happen. This might have been a good place to sort research out as well, rather than just having regions provide research they could have just provided more spaces to build research buildings. If the research buildings were powerful enough this would add an extra dynamic to the campaign map as well as intrinsically add an element of diminishing returns.

The narrative elements were good but I wish there were a lot more of them. I don't know how expensive it would have been to add a lot of unvoiced exposition and chatter but it would have added a lot to the game.

Generals seemed to be consistently overpriced compared to their impact on the field.

In the preview I heard mention there were different dragon types for people who were more interested in the RTS portion or the arcade portion of the game. This didn't seem to materialise which is a shame. It might have caused some balance issues to have a dragon that was 75% more resilient and regenerated energy 33% faster at a cost of making your troops 25% less effective but I think the single player could handle a little imbalance.

I've realised I have almost nothing bad to say about the RTS elements, it's not perfect but it did the job pretty well with no glaring issues. Except Warlocks. I hate those guys. Larian did an amazing job of cleaning this up over the beta.

Wow, that was a lot of text. I guess it speaks to how much the game gripped me. Looking forward to future releases and (fingers crossed) mod tools. Either way I'm substantially happier I backed Original Sin this is the first Larian game I've seriously played and it gives a good impression.

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"In the loading screen it says fortifications are affected by the proximity of enemy armies on adjacent tiles. It doesn't say HOW though. Does keeping an army next to an enemy capital reduce fortifications (like a siege) or increase them (giving them chance to reinforce)? Either way I haven't noticed the impact in gameplay."

I believe that refers to the "entrenchment" bonus. Which is how many bonus troops gained when fighting on that territory. a 100% entrenchment gives you double the troops you have there (so if you had 5 troopers, you get 10 when attacked)
Im not sure if there's a distinct equation for how much is impacted by your actions. But surrounding an enemy capital on all sides before attacking it lessens the bonus, whereas rushing it from the waterfront means it'll have a much higher one.



"There isn't any visible mechanic that accounts for the fact you can just sit in chapter 1 gaining resources for chapter 2 and so on. The whole chaptering system is pretty weird actually so I'm hoping Custom Campaign doesn't use it and you just don't have a chapter 2/3."

In chapter 1 you're hardcapped to 50 and 30 respectively. Go over that and it gets stolen. Chapter 2 does admittedly let you research everything. But to be fair, unless you're rushing hardcore you're capable of researching the only important things before chapter 3 regardless of how fast you do chapter 2.


"Some of the maps gave massive advantages to the defender in the RTS portion. Mechanically I quite liked this but it wasn't obvious in the campaign when this was going to happen and I don't think it was represented in auto resolve."

Im not really sure what you mean. Are you talking about the entrenchment bonus (which is shown on the world map, and then on the resolve screen)or something else?


"The buildings were a bit weird. The Tavern and Wizards Tower were pretty clear (though the Wizards tower was rubbish) but I was never clear which cards the others provided. It would also have been nice if I could build fortifications rather than have them jut sort of happen. This might have been a good place to sort research out as well, rather than just having regions provide research they could have just provided more spaces to build research buildings. If the research buildings were powerful enough this would add an extra dynamic to the campaign map as well as intrinsically add an element of diminishing returns."

You can sort your cards to see exactly what each type looks like. In short, diplomacy cards boost population, gold, give you sales on units, immunize you to attack, and other type of world map stuff. The other type of card (subterfuge?) are things like causing enemies to not be able to move on a turn, or making them weaker for the purpose of rts combat. You also can choose what to build. Any empty territory, right click and select the build option. You can also sell most buildings if you have no need of what they give.


"Generals seemed to be consistently overpriced compared to their impact on the field."

Their prices go up as you get further into the campaign/hold more territory. At the very start they cost like 8 gold and can add 30% to an auto resolve score. Keep in mind what their stats do. For example, scarlett will add more than henry if you're on the defensive, and fielding only troopers and grenadiers.

"In the preview I heard mention there were different dragon types for people who were more interested in the RTS portion or the arcade portion of the game. This didn't seem to materialise which is a shame. It might have caused some balance issues to have a dragon that was 75% more resilient and regenerated energy 33% faster at a cost of making your troops 25% less effective but I think the single player could handle a little imbalance."

The dragons do have their differences (in starting skills, and how quickly they overheat vs how much damage their fireballs do) however there are unfortunately no differences to how they work off the rts map (at least as far as I noticed)

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Originally Posted by Zenyatoo
I believe that refers to the "entrenchment" bonus. Which is how many bonus troops gained when fighting on that territory. a 100% entrenchment gives you double the troops you have there (so if you had 5 troopers, you get 10 when attacked)

Im not sure if there's a distinct equation for how much is impacted by your actions. But surrounding an enemy capital on all sides before attacking it lessens the bonus, whereas rushing it from the waterfront means it'll have a much higher one.


I figured it was the entrenchment bonus I just wasn't sure how it worked. That system makes sense, it's just a bit opaque in the game itself.

Originally Posted by Zenyatoo

In chapter 1 you're hardcapped to 50 and 30 respectively. Go over that and it gets stolen. Chapter 2 does admittedly let you research everything. But to be fair, unless you're rushing hardcore you're capable of researching the only important things before chapter 3 regardless of how fast you do chapter 2.


That's fine except I'm not happy about how easy it is to research all the important upgrades so quickly in the game as I mentioned earlier. Also you can definitely stockpile gold for the last chapter which is a bit unbalancing.

Originally Posted by Zenyatoo

Im not really sure what you mean. Are you talking about the entrenchment bonus (which is shown on the world map, and then on the resolve screen)or something else?


It's not entrenchment, but the map design. One of them had 8 recruitment centers, 3 spread across the map and 5 in a tight formation around where the defender starts.

Originally Posted by Zenyatoo

You can sort your cards to see exactly what each type looks like. In short, diplomacy cards boost population, gold, give you sales on units, immunize you to attack, and other type of world map stuff. The other type of card (subterfuge?) are things like causing enemies to not be able to move on a turn, or making them weaker for the purpose of rts combat. You also can choose what to build. Any empty territory, right click and select the build option. You can also sell most buildings if you have no need of what they give.


Thanks for clearing it up but this is still a bit odd. For example the Parliament creates strategy cards but strategy isn't one of the filters, they're split into Diplomacy and Subterfuge. But it seems like the academy also creates subterfuge cards. Also the academy and wizard cards are decidedly much less effective than the tavern cards. The Wizards tower in particular is very weak. I feel like this whole system could have been improved quite a bit with a few changes.


Originally Posted by Zenyatoo

"Generals seemed to be consistently overpriced compared to their impact on the field."

Their prices go up as you get further into the campaign/hold more territory. At the very start they cost like 8 gold and can add 30% to an auto resolve score. Keep in mind what their stats do. For example, scarlett will add more than henry if you're on the defensive, and fielding only troopers and grenadiers.


I never got even close to 30% to autoresolve, I think my highest was about 8 for 15 gold. A 3 point trooper would have added more than twice that. I get they have flexibility but they were still pretty worthless.


Originally Posted by Zenyatoo

The dragons do have their differences (in starting skills, and how quickly they overheat vs how much damage their fireballs do) however there are unfortunately no differences to how they work off the rts map (at least as far as I noticed)


Yeah, I just think it's a shame these differences weren't much more pronounced. Flying around as a dragon was absolutely my favourite part of the RTS mode and while it had a decent impact I still spent 90% of my time managing my units.


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