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.

[Malfias]

Are you able to get playable harpies in FG2? I thought someone said you could sometime ago, but if so I never worked out how. Thanks

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by Malfias:

Are you able to get playable harpies in FG2? I thought someone said you could sometime ago, but if so I never worked out how. Thanks

At least not yet. Maybe the incoming Onslaught DLC will do something.

[Malfias]

Originally posted by Virgil-SKY:

Originally posted by Malfias:

Are you able to get playable harpies in FG2? I thought someone said you could sometime ago, but if so I never worked out how. Thanks

At least not yet. Maybe the incoming Onslaught DLC will do something.

Thanks we can hope so as it was nice briefly having centaurs as part of the campaign. The only thing really missing I find is having no options to upgrade the princess when you recruit her that would be fun.

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by Malfias:

The only thing really missing I find is having no options to upgrade the princess when you recruit her that would be fun.

Yes this also confuses me a lot, she seems to be designed as a normal hero units (like barbarian's Thane, no skill tree but have some fixed skill and 2 slot) instead of a special one. btw, the empire transmuter HAS skill tree, if you have checked the skirmish mode.

[Malfias]

Originally posted by Virgil-SKY:

Originally posted by Malfias:

The only thing really missing I find is having no options to upgrade the princess when you recruit her that would be fun.

Yes this also confuses me a lot, she seems to be designed as a normal hero units (like barbarian's Thane, no skill tree but have some fixed skill and 2 slot) instead of a special one. btw, the empire transmuter HAS skill tree, if you have checked the skirmish mode.

Yeah I funnily noticed the transmuter skill tree first from examing them in one random campaign battle as noticed that they were sometimes using different skills. I agree for something built to be like a hero she doesn't really feel like one right now that feels a bit weird to me.

[Virgil-SKY]

Bay of Kyrios: If you set Marca free, after this mission she will ask you to stop raiding. Agree will cause a -1 moral team debuff at the start of next mission, disagree will cause her leaving you. It seems that Synor does not have this choice. Also, she doesn't bring her 2 supply to you and won't take any supply away when leaving.
Capital: capturing any one castle in the optional quests will cause an empire reinforcement coming from NW. The river castle give 4 supplies, the old castle cause enemy -1 moral, the one where emperor stands cause enemy "exhausted" (forget the effect, should be less damage?).

[Virgil-SKY]

After patch 4, the Iseal burn route gives one more new debuff: Doughal lose 1 moral.

[hisssan]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ:

The game is designed so that not all the loot you get is useful. That's part of the strategy, you need to collect lots of loot because only some of it will be useful. If you cheat by giving yourself all the best stuff then you're ruining the game for yourself, and of course it won't be balanced. The idea that reloading over and over to get the results you want is an intended part of the game, instead of a way that you are shortchanging yourself on the game experience, is ridiculous.

Random loot that ranges from a useless potion to one super legendary that make the unit wielding it a powerhouse is bad game design imo and forces any normal thinking player to savescumming. Bad design! How about fixed rewards or treasure classes (e.g. having one out of x good items drop on specific chest/graves/encounters) and others just always drop say a potion. Problem solved. Many RPGs use fixed loot, As a designer this also saves you a lot of headache in terms of game balancing.
Random loot is only great for loot shooters and other games that rely on that mechanic alone for grind replayability. Not so great for campaign game with limited drops.

TL;DR: If every drop matters, don't make them that random. (And I say that as someone who loves random loot in other games..)

[DaviddesJ]

I guess I'm better than the "normal" player because I'm not forced to cheat, I just take what I get. I'm skeptical of your assertion that most players are so unable to stop themselves from cheating. I think it's just a few vocal players in these forums. Sure, any one drop may be pretty random, but if you just take what you get over the course of the campaign it averages out just fine. It's not really true that any drop matters much, in a campaign with over a hundred drops and dozens of scenarios.

[zxcv_sv]

Choice 2: The Gap or Malric's Vale
The gap choice have a much more settlements to raid,much bigger map,two camps to add units.
Malric's Vale has a dragon shrine(break charge abitily),one camp,and the most important +2 unit supply.
NO liqud mana in both ways,savecummed heavy

[NKlein1553]

Is there any disadvantage to choosing to kill the captives after the Clanmeet scenario? If you kill them, you get their weapons, armor and a popular decision buff. If not, I don't see any immediate advantage.

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by NKlein1553:

Is there any disadvantage to choosing to kill the captives after the Clanmeet scenario? If you kill them, you get their weapons, armor and a popular decision buff. If not, I don't see any immediate advantage.

No. IIRC you still get the moral buff, nothing else.

[blindseye]

On my first play through, a few months ago now, I did not kill the captives and they (two Thanes) joined me. On my subsequent play-throughs they did not join me, so I don't know if my selections were different later or that has been recoded/changed in subsequent update(s).

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by blindseye:

On my first play through, a few months ago now, I did not kill the captives and they (two Thanes) joined me. On my subsequent play-throughs they did not join me, so I don't know if my selections were different later or that has been recoded/changed in subsequent update(s).

Do you have kinslayer when they join you? From what I can remember, this is what makes the difference.

[blindseye]

I think I did, now that you mention it, but it was months ago.