The Mission Choice Spoiler Thread

[Mhorhe]

Hello :)

I was not able to find anything similar (at least at the point in the campaign where I'm at right now) so figured others might want something similar.

Specifically, your opinions on which pathway would be the more desirable one to tread and why.

Obviously, all of it is spoilerish, but perhaps the more extreme spoilers might well be hidden :) thank you!

edit: Going to put this down as a road map for others, should they choose to spoil themselves a tad. Please, everyone, correct whatever I might get wrong or add whatever I missed on one mission or another.

Choice 1: Old Road or the White Hills. White Hills has a fixed drop for the Extractor, artifact which gives you 2 mana for a kill, and a Blood Oak which gives Frenzy. Also, there are first time Spiders for your (potential) Wolfmother to charm.

Choice 2: The Gap or Malric's Vale. Difficulty wise they're, I think, kinda the same, and both are interesting. Unaware of any particular reasons to pick one or the other.

Choice 3: Iseal or Clanhold of Machnar. Clanhold gives a huge bunch of Armor. Iseal gives you some resources and lots of artifacts (got a Blood Oak Bow when I tried the mission but I don't know if it's a fixed drop), especially a guaranteed +12 Armour Piercing Ghost Sword. Sadly, Iseal also means you either lose Ulnar and get Kinslayer on Falirson, or a hefty debuff on your trolls and Ailsa.
NOTA BENE - this is no longer as severe as it used to be.

Choice 4: Shrouded Coast, Glowood, Shrouded Hills. You can do all of these. Glowood gives a nice summoning artifact (summons get Strong, and it also teaches summoning of a few types of beasts). Hills has a guaranteed +4 weapons +4 armor +2 (?) Liquid Mana in the centerpiece castle. Coast has the most potential liquid mana to gain.

Choice 5: Dragon Isles. After the mission you get a Dragon Mount for Ailsa making them probably the best unit in the game.

Choice 6: Kanthas or Golden Coast. I am not 100% certain but reasonably close (make it 95%? :) ) that you can only get Centaurs by doing Kanthas. The Centaur Shock Cavalry (basic and upgrade) are fairly meh, but the Archers are very useful - decent physical damage archers and they have the Pathfinder Aura, so +2 movement for all nearby units. Kanthas also yields 2 guaranteed Blood Oak Bows - north - mid part of the map there is a Blood Oak, an event there.
Golden Coast gives +5 supply.

Story Choice Dolos:
Before Porikos Dolos asks to leave. You can refuse him (he strongly hints that he'll desert anyway), let him go (you get +4 liquid mana from his tent), execute him for desertion (you get an epic artifact and +8 liquid mana), or bribe him to stay.
If you bribe Dolos (I'm fairly certain giving him gold and mana yields the same result as giving him mana only) after Porikos he'll hand you an Extractor and 2 other minor artifacts.

Choice 7: Synor and the North or Bay of Kyrios.
You get -1 morale for Ailsa if you accept Marcra's help in Synor and the North, no such debuff if you accept Marcra's help in Bay of Kyrios. However, during the Bay of Kyrios mission you run across some Centaurs - if you accept their aid in return for Empire land, Marcra will get -1 morale (possibly with some story consequences down the road, too).
In Bay of Kyrios Marcra's help means +4 weapons, +4 armor and gold. In Synor and the North, when you get her to Rime you get allied with Rime and receive 5 Empire units (sadly, only for the mission) - 2 Longbowmen and 3 Legionnaires.
I haven't played Bay of Kyrios to completion, but Synor and the North is interesting. There's a large Empire taskforce to the NW of your main objective, and a "cursed" forest full of beasts and Empire skirmishers to the SE where your second main objective is. Plenty of looting all over.

[Mhorhe]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ:

I'm playing the same game as you so of course I have all of those things. Yes, by design you get lots of items you probably won't use. If the design was for you to have your choice of 10 items then the game would just give you a choice of 10 items. Of course, it's your game, you can play however you want, but (1) don't give advice to others based on the assumption they are cheating, and (2) you're only cheating yourself by making the game easier and less balanced.

It's actually not by design.

It appears the drop rate is bugged - as per primetide's words, if you have an object already its chance to drop should fall, and it looks like it does the reverse.

The philosophy of savescumming being/not being evil is as old as gaming :D

In this game, well.. if the Blood Oaks in Krell's Tower give you Lazy, Lifelong Curse, and Weak in a row, are you not going to load a couple of saves? :)

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Mhorhe:

In this game, well.. if the Blood Oaks in Krell's Tower give you Lazy, Lifelong Curse, and Weak in a row, are you not going to load a couple of saves? :)

Of course not.

It's not "evil" to play however you want. For the fourth time, you're only cheating yourself. But can we please give advice in the advice threads based on how the game actually plays and not based on how you can cheat?

[Mhorhe]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ:

It's not "evil" to play however you want. For the fourth time, you're only cheating yourself. But can we please give advice in the advice threads based on how the game actually plays and not based on how you can cheat?

Fair enough :) except, for better or worse, I think the majority of the player population in FG 2 savescums. It's mostly because of the random resource for upgrades, I guess.

So.

Glowood, Shrouded Coast or Shrouded Hills! :)

[Hilde Die Wilde]

Originally posted by Mhorhe:

Glowood, Shrouded Coast or Shrouded Hills! :)

Why "or" ? You can do all of them to maximize liquid mana. But I guess someone is going to derail the thread again by calling that part of game mechanic "cheat" pretty soon, too :)

Hills had a stealth nerf in the recent patch, but I still do them in the order: Hills, Glowood, Coast.

You could simply stop the undead spawn (castle quest) in Hills by flying over the castle w a Pegasus and do the quest. Now you have to get some infantry into the castle. Easiest by a leap.
Glowood yields a nice staff for your wolfmother (no savescum needed, fixed drop)
Coast is just for the mana, if i didnt miss anything

[Mhorhe]

Originally posted by Hilde Die Wilde:

Why "or" ? You can do all of them to maximize liquid mana. But I guess someone is going to derail the thread again by calling that part of game mechanic "cheat" pretty soon, too :)

Hills had a stealth nerf in the recent patch, but I still do them in the order: Hills, Glowood, Coast.

Excellent! I was unsure of whether it was a choice or not. There is a sad paucity of resources on FG II, we the community should get on it :(

Are there more situations up ahead, where it's not a branch but rather a pool of optional missions?

[Hilde Die Wilde]

Not a paucity of ressources, but a poor distribution imho.... you literally swim in not needed stuff later....

Missions: Not exactly a pool, but after "There and back " (?) you have a one time chance to take Dragon Isles , the choice between the other missions remains if you take Dragon Isles first (which you should)

[Mhorhe]

Thank you :) appreciated!

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Mhorhe:

I think the majority of the player population in FG 2 savescums.

I doubt it. It seems to be primarily a problem with the online discussion community. I think most people who play these games without a lot of forum interaction don't think this way. But the discussions seem to focus around exploiting reloading and the like --- and then complaints that the game is unbalanced and too easy as a result!!

[blindseye]

IMHO, I think you are both speculating, but both sort of correct. My personal research poll, consisting of both of the players I know, who have played these games as youngsters since the originals first came out (me and my best friend), is that we save scum when we do something accidentally or really dumb and don't want to replay the whole map. I think this partially has to do with how much time you have to play games (and I'd rather replay a turn than the whole map). And, as adults, game-playing time is much less frequent, until you hit retirement.

But there seems to be a trend among newer/younger designers/developers/gamers for Iron-man, Rogue-like games, to prevent save scumming. Personally, I don't see the benefit to the developers, as it just hurts sales, and who cares how each player plays a single-player game? I applaud designers/developers who have an "Un-Do last move" button and have multiple levels of difficulty, that allows enjoyment and availability to all sorts and levels of gamers, not just the "hard core."

On the other hand, I do agree that the games should be balanced to the non-scum savers, so it can challenge all players equally. Personally, I hate replaying the same thing over and over trying to get it perfect. I would rather have a casual play-through, enjoy the story, and have some fun, not frustration. But that is me, and to each their own. It sounds like you are both enjoying the game, in your own way. :)

[DaviddesJ]

I don't think reloading when I misclick on the wrong unit (which happens due to the interface sometimes) and send it to its death is much like reloading several times at each cave to get the best possible reward. Two quite different things.

[TsUnAmI]

Could you stop derailing, please? this was about mission choice and spoilers.

There we go:

In malric's vale you get malric's ring, anyone knows what to do about the "cleanse" or ritual it asks about?

[Dunadd]

Originally posted by Iria_J:

The old road seems easier, and is quite straight forward and doesn't require splitting your army. The white hills has a unique reward for a unit that visits the tree resource, the frenzy ability, which might be great for an armored slinger if you are good at placement for lots of retaliation fire.

Fighting Iseal over Clan Marchar. Iseal gives you tough decisions, you either ruin all your current troll units and debuff your sister, or you lose Ulnar the bear and put a big debuff on your main character in return for 12 armor piercing sword.

A question about the shrouded hills in the Sunken Lands: after the mission someone steals 1 supply. Is the thief ever caught and supply returned? If you skip this voluntary mission, do you keep the supply?

I was holding off on making slingers hoping for centaurs, but I feel like I am nearing the end of the game without finding any centaurs. How long until they appear?

everything I do seems to make Ailsa go in a huff. She's great early on in the campaign, but the further I get into it the more I'm wondering what the point in having her is, Certainly she can cast some good spells, but even when she's mounted on a dragon it flies amazingly slowly - and her morale and armour are so low almost anything can kill her in about 2 turns if you're not careful.

EDIT - i remembered - it's for the summons - Guardians make everything easier, even free haste spells on other units

Morhe wrote

Glowood, Shrouded Coast or Shrouded Hills! :)

You can do all three of those, so it's not really a choice. Only choice is what order you do them in. Personally I think the coast is the easiest one (so long as you have water or speed boots and three or so units of magical berserkers) and Glowood the hardest. So, after trying the start of each i do the coast, the hills and then glowood. The hills are the most straightforward, but hardest to keep all your units alive in at the start because they're split up and surrounded

[Hilde Die Wilde]

I find sis + dragon awesome...just don't attack single targets ! use her aoe + extractor
This disorders adjacent ai so much that you can grill rows of archers np and even generate mana...(Krell+extractor + magic dmg artifact...)
Usually I soften up the ai with hurlers and archers, than dragon breath. Thats 2 or 3 kills per dragon breath ....
btw: any1 knows if there is a cap to + magic dmg eg ?

[Mhorhe]

Originally posted by Hilde Die Wilde:

I find sis + dragon awesome...just don't attack single targets ! use her aoe + extractor
This disorders adjacent ai so much that you can grill rows of archers np and even generate mana...(Krell+extractor + magic dmg artifact...)
Usually I soften up the ai with hurlers and archers, than dragon breath. Thats 2 or 3 kills per dragon breath ....
btw: any1 knows if there is a cap to + magic dmg eg ?

Same :) I don't think there is a cap to +magic dmg.

A word of warning to others: PORIKOS.


The main mission can be accomplished fairly fast, within 15 turns or thereabouts (and that with a split force getting the reverse mana well to the east, in the mountains).

You might be tempted to proceed, since at this point especially you're probably bursting at the seams with wealth.

Sneaky Devs :)

You should be aware, then, that each of the Towers on the west coast, which are each protected by sizable Imperial task forces, yield rewards - mana pots, mana, 300 gold 2 armor for the far SW tower.

The Tower straight to the west of downtown Porikos also holds a kill switch for the undead horde surrounding it - so you can theoretically march in a couple of units (one using Krell's Staff, or Ailsa with Turn Undead learnt), Turn Undead and use the kill switch with the second unit. However, the Transmuter is left, and you obviously forego any other loot inside that tower.

The Mana Wells to the east (top and bottom) yield 2 Liquid Mana each if you choose to destroy the rods.

MOST IMPORTANTLY. To the far NW, at the very edge of the map, there's a small forest with a Camp smack in the middle. Taking that Camp yields TWO SUPPLY.

[sipelgapesa1]

@OP

Choise 6
Kanthas 2 blood oak bows
Golden coast +5 supply (onlly way to have over 40 supply)