The Conspiracy

[Fedup]

I want Rhagaea to unite the Empire. So I gave her the banner. Now some conspiracy timer is ticking and google tells me once it hits 2000, everyone will declare war on us, but those were old articles.
My questions are:

- Is it indeed everyone? Or just in-Empire kingdoms? Northern Empire is gone by now.
Do they really refuse peace?
- I heard that there are some "conspiracy quests". Do these quests decrease the timer's progress or if you don't do it the timer jumps ahead?
- Are there ways to reduce the conspiracy meter without cheats?
- If we land the 13 Imperial cities (we are at 11 now) do we finish the quest and the conspiracy loses? Or Rhagea becomes mega-emperess but the others will still declare war on us eventually?

[Karna5]

I never took main quest to end (I get bored by time I'm so powerful taking over the map is feasible, so I always start a new character at that point).

But I notice they give you like 52 days to take over half the map, and that's probably not really feasible. Also, the conspiracy quests have you going all over the map. So you'll have huge armies assaulting your settlements on one side of the map while you hunt down conspirators on the other side.

I don't really see how you could realistically get around the map fast enough to defend all your settlements let alone track down the conspirators without using console commands to get around quickly.

In my humble opinion it's a quest designed to fail if you play it straight. Playing it without console commands you'll lose settlements as fast as you get them.

Will the whole map go against you? I personally doubt it, but if you're strong enough to take over half the map you're probably strong enough to fight everyone anyway :)

[Action Man]

I think the point of the Conspiracy quest is you're supposed to lose. You're on a timer to all out war, so you want to inflict as much damage as possible before that happens. The conspiracy quests send you all over the map to make them harder to do while balancing defending your territory and expanding it.

If it works the same as destroying the Empire, the non-imperial factions will be in eternal war with you. Since there are more non-imperial factions, I don't think it would be all five, and I'm not sure how the other Empire factions handle it.

You can lower the conspiracy bar by completing the quests Istiana/Arzagos give you.

Best practice is to do as much as possible in the first 1700 days (before giving the banner to anyone/raising it yourself). Use as much of that time as you can, then raise the banner. Any factions you can knock out before the conspiracy starts is good for you.

The game gives you no help in getting through the quest.

[Fedup]

My lands? I give back to Rhagaea all fiefs except of a single city and a castle that I keep. She keeps awarding me fiefs and I keep throwing them back to her.
I may actually give the castle away too. It makes a bit of money but then I would have to defend two places, although they are next to each other.

Why would I need to expand? Rhagaea can do that by herself if I keep the conspiracy timer low. Which is why I ask "Can I lower the conspiracy timer by doing those "other side of the map" quests?

All we need is two more Imperial settlements and Rhagaea is besieging one as I type this message, with 3000 soldiers.

Does the conspiracy ENDS if I conquer the 13 settlements?
Or the counter keeps going forever and ever and all I can do is kick the can down?
Do the remaining Imperial towns join the victorious Southern Empire, or they are just considered Rebels, we are considered legitimate and all is at it was?

[lurkathon]

I recently completed an empire victory as a vassal of the North. By the time I activated the Conspiracy quest we had eliminated the West and had 12/13 settlements. After capturing the last one required from the South, the Aserai, Vlandia and Sturgia declared perpetual war on us. Khuzait, Battania and the South (once I made peace asap) were not part of the 'quest war'.
Then its just a matter of getting the 'warscore' against one of those 3 factions to 100, I recommend just focusing on 1 even if you give up some settlements to others.
Edit: accuracy

[Fedup]

Wait, what? If you complete the Empire quest YOU GET ATTACKED by three factions?! What kind of "Reward" is that?!

How is that different from the conspiracy?

[Fedup]

OK, I loaded before giving to Rhagaea the banner. Very soon after, we were besieging a castle. We had 1000 soldiers, they had 250. We took it easily with low casualties. One of the casualties?!
RHAGAEA herself. The Empress died!
Then, every noble in the land voted ME for ruler of the Empire. I didn't have enough influence to make someone else the Emperor.
I have not even figured how to run a town or a castle and I was dumped with an empire.

Time to load again, I guess...
Just in case, I kept a save of me as Empress.

[MiSFiT77]

I think that Neretzes Folly is some kind of in house joke. Ie it's folly to even attempt this. The banner itself is garbage compared to other available banners. If you keep following the quests you end up in a perpetual war with at least one enemy with zero chance of peace, meanwhile the other factions will repeatedly declare war on you, meaning you are always losing ground to someone. As I understand it if you ignore the quest then you can still go for world map domination only you can at least buy/settle for peace with every faction on the map. So short periods of total peace are possible. Follow the folly and there is no peace until you've killed everyone. Like an idiot I completed the quests. I still feel like it's possible that I can conquer the world and give all the idiots a brand new religion. But I have a strong feeling that I've made it a lot harder for myself.

[Edmund Greyfox]

I think this is a quest everyone should do once to see how it goes, but most veteran players only do it up to the point where you rescue your brothers/sister. Once they grow up they make good party leaders, so rescuing them is worth it.

The rest of the quest is just annoying, though it's quite possible to put the banner together and NOT take it back to Istiana or Zaragos to trigger the conspiracy quest until you have already conquered most of the map. Having everyone declare war isn't a big deal when there are only 2-3 factions left that have a strength of <6K while your faction has a strength of >25K.

[Fedup]

Originally posted by MiSFiT77:

I think that Neretzes Folly is some kind of in house joke. Ie it's folly to even attempt this. The banner itself is garbage compared to other available banners. If you keep following the quests you end up in a perpetual war with at least one enemy with zero chance of peace, meanwhile the other factions will repeatedly declare war on you, meaning you are always losing ground to someone

The banner is garbage indeed.
So, to get this:
If I complete the quest: War with 3 factions.
If I lose the conspiracy: War with all factions.
If I ignore the quest till near the end of the timer: Nothing happens.

[MiSFiT77]

Originally posted by Fedup:

Originally posted by MiSFiT77:

I think that Neretzes Folly is some kind of in house joke. Ie it's folly to even attempt this. The banner itself is garbage compared to other available banners. If you keep following the quests you end up in a perpetual war with at least one enemy with zero chance of peace, meanwhile the other factions will repeatedly declare war on you, meaning you are always losing ground to someone

The banner is garbage indeed.
So, to get this:
If I complete the quest: War with 3 factions.
If I lose the conspiracy: War with all factions.
If I ignore the quest till near the end of the timer: Nothing happens.

It's doable, but I feel like there's a mid game tipping point that is hard to get over. By mid game I mean you capture about a third of the map, but then get stuck in a rut of take one, lose one, because everyone is gunning for you and they are all still strong. So the only option is a war of attrition against one faction (probably Battania or Sturgia) until one of them goes extinct. Then do the same to the next faction. But just as you think it'll get easier, it doesn't. Even with two factions wiped out, the other enemies get stronger because the old Battanian and Sturgian Lords all join the other factions.