[Spoilers] Shove Dijkstra aside or tell him about the Emperor? pros and cons please.

[Scarill]

As the title says i wanna hear pros and cons of both options! :)
i saw that telling him about the emperors plan will make me be able to kill radovid? and cons about this path? and "shove" Dijkstra aside cons?
Thanks in advance!

[jclosed]

If you shove Dijkstra away, you will miss the chance to play the plot to kill Radovid. You also lose all credit with him, and you cannot count on any help from him later on.

If you tell him about the emperor, you not only will get Philipa out of the bath house without trouble, but you also get the chance to play the plot to kill Radivid.

Take your pick..

[newman]

Shove him aside and you wont get the quest.

[Scarill]

Originally posted by jclosed:

If you shove Dijkstra away, you will miss the chance to play the plot to kill Radovid. You also lose all credit with him, and you cannot count on any help from him later on.

If you tell him about the emperor, you not only will get Philipa out of the bath house without trouble, but you also get the chance to play the plot to kill Radivid.

Take your pick..

alright i was thinking about going for the emperor one but are there any cons in this path? i saw that Dijkstra will try to kill Roche,Ves and Thaler which i defiently don't want to happen but this mission wont ♥♥♥♥ up the ending with Ciri? i want the best ending possible so im playing carefully at the end now before i make and big decision

[jclosed]

Originally posted by Scarill:

alright i was thinking about going for the emperor one but are there any cons in this path? i saw that Dijkstra will try to kill Roche,Ves and Thaler which i defiently don't want to happen but this mission wont ♥♥♥♥ up the ending with Ciri? i want the best ending possible so im playing carefully at the end now before i make and big decision

Depends what you think is the best possible ending. Now that the spoiler tag is already on this thread I can say some general things about what will happen.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and if you have taken her to the Emperor, then shove away Dijkstra and do not do the plot to kill Radovid.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and you have not taken her to the Emperor, then it really makes no difference. I advise, however, to do the plot to kill Radovid (no - I am not going to say why).

If you want Ciri to end as Empress, you must have taken her to the Emperor, and you have to shove away Dijkstra. There is simply no other way.

Dijkstra will try to kill Roche and Thaler (I think Ves will escape, but I am not certain). However, you are present there and can choose to stop Dijkstra. However Dijkstra will not be an bad ruler. He will try to give equality to all human and not-human races and on top of that will welcome Sourceresses. This will be not the really the case if you stop Dijkstra.

Hope this helps.

[Scarill]

Originally posted by jclosed:

Originally posted by Scarill:

alright i was thinking about going for the emperor one but are there any cons in this path? i saw that Dijkstra will try to kill Roche,Ves and Thaler which i defiently don't want to happen but this mission wont ♥♥♥♥ up the ending with Ciri? i want the best ending possible so im playing carefully at the end now before i make and big decision

Depends what you think is the best possible ending. Now that the spoiler tag is already on this thread I can say some general things about what will happen.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and if you have taken her to the Emperor, then shove away Dijkstra and do not do the plot to kill Radovid.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and you have not taken her to the Emperor, then it really makes no difference. I advise, however, to do the plot to kill Radovid (no - I am not going to say why).

If you want Ciri to end as Empress, you must have taken her to the Emperor, and you have to shove away Dijkstra. There is simply no other way.

Dijkstra will try to kill Roche and Thaler (I think Ves will escape, but I am not certain). However, you are present there and can choose to stop Dijkstra. However Dijkstra will not be an bad ruler. He will try to give equality to all human and not-human races and on top of that will welcome Sourceresses. This will be not the really the case if you stop Dijkstra.

Hope this helps.

Helps alot Dude! This is the path im going for and thanks also for not spoiling! "If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and you have not taken her to the Emperor, then it really makes no difference. I advise, however, to do the plot to kill Radovid (no - I am not going to say why)." also i will slaughter Dijkstra since i also choose Roche in The Witcher 2 so we got dat BROship ;D

[awesome1ru]

Originally posted by jclosed:

Originally posted by Scarill:

alright i was thinking about going for the emperor one but are there any cons in this path? i saw that Dijkstra will try to kill Roche,Ves and Thaler which i defiently don't want to happen but this mission wont ♥♥♥♥ up the ending with Ciri? i want the best ending possible so im playing carefully at the end now before i make and big decision

Depends what you think is the best possible ending. Now that the spoiler tag is already on this thread I can say some general things about what will happen.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and if you have taken her to the Emperor, then shove away Dijkstra and do not do the plot to kill Radovid.

If you want Ciri to end as Witcher, and you have not taken her to the Emperor, then it really makes no difference. I advise, however, to do the plot to kill Radovid (no - I am not going to say why).

If you want Ciri to end as Empress, you must have taken her to the Emperor, and you have to shove away Dijkstra. There is simply no other way.

Dijkstra will try to kill Roche and Thaler (I think Ves will escape, but I am not certain). However, you are present there and can choose to stop Dijkstra. However Dijkstra will not be an bad ruler. He will try to give equality to all human and not-human races and on top of that will welcome Sourceresses. This will be not the really the case if you stop Dijkstra.

Hope this helps.

Emhyr would be an equal ruler too, i would choose Dijkstra if he didnt wanna kill Roche and company

[v0]

well... if you want to kill dijkstra you know which option you need to pick ;)

[Exarch_Alpha]

To me the only thing that matters is sending Radovid to hell, so...

[v0]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

To me the only thing that matters is sending Radovid to hell, so...

yeah. sadly he's too 1d.. tw3'd benefited from much more ambiguous decision there and earlier in game c&c related to it.

[Oldbastage]

Dijkstra is one of the most mishandled story lines in the game. Canon Dijkstra was pretty brilliant and wouldn't have done the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the game had him do.

[Oldbastage]

No argument about his motivations or that he would have been in for himself/Redania in the end. It was the ham-handed way it was handled in the game that made my eyes bleed. I view him as an unfailing player of the long game, not some thug. His time with the king of Kovir in the books really set me on the way he would act I guess. I could see him subtly putting the screws to Temeria over time and making them like it somehow. Showing up with the B team and trying to take out 3 major badasses in a brute force maneuver just didn't seem his style to me.

[deidian]

Originally posted by Oldbastage:

No argument about his motivations or that he would have been in for himself/Redania in the end. It was the ham-handed way it was handled in the game that made my eyes bleed. I view him as an unfailing player of the long game, not some thug. His time with the king of Kovir in the books really set me on the way he would act I guess. I could see him subtly putting the screws to Temeria over time and making them like it somehow. Showing up with the B team and trying to take out 3 major badasses in a brute force maneuver just didn't seem his style to me.

I wouldn't call it force brute...more like a well laid ambush in a place where they couldn't scape outnumbering them by far. 3 VS 10? That kind of ratio is something(1 to 3) that only people with very good knowledge of sword usage could manage, and I don't think Roche is that guy.

Now is when maybe story conflicts with player choice, after all "Reason of State" is a quest in which the player has a choice. You decide how great is Geralt's involvement with Roche to tip the scales enough the help them, because on the moral side of things neither side is a saint. Roche would be betraying Djikstra as much as Djisktra is betraying them, because they both didn't told each other their real plans and it's obvious that they would conflict.

[Oldbastage]

Originally posted by BuzzardBee:

Originally posted by Oldbastage:

No argument about his motivations or that he would have been in for himself/Redania in the end. It was the ham-handed way it was handled in the game that made my eyes bleed. I view him as an unfailing player of the long game, not some thug. His time with the king of Kovir in the books really set me on the way he would act I guess. I could see him subtly putting the screws to Temeria over time and making them like it somehow. Showing up with the B team and trying to take out 3 major badasses in a brute force maneuver just didn't seem his style to me.

I doubt there'd be much time or opportunity for subtlety in the midst of an invasion. He'd set himself up as Sigi Reuven, one of the Gang of Four, so he could maintain some control over Novigrad. That was his longterm plan but with the war all around him, he couldn't make his move before then.

And striking whatever bargain he could with Temeria after the deal was done wouldn't help him since it would have left him in a pretty bad position to strike at Nilfgaard. They would have pulled their troops out of Temeria and consolidated their forces firmly in the North, especially Redania with Radovid now dealt with.

His only real time to act was just then, once Radovid was dead and Emhyr hadn't learned of it yet. It wasn't just a mtter of killing Radovid and then having all the time in the world to deal with Temeria. Deal with them with what? It's not as if he could just walk in and take over Redania and work from a position of power. The moment the pact was completed, Nilfgaard would have siezed control of Novigrad and then Redania. The time to make his move was before Emhyr could redploy his forces to concentrate on all territories north of Temeria.

At that point in the game, Aedirn, Lyria and Kaedwen were in no position to defend themselves. Temeria was providing enough of a distraction with the geurrilla fighters and Radovid was a serious obstacle that Emhyr had to overcome. The pact nullified the guerrilla attacks in Temeria while it also removed Radovid. Novigrad became inconsequential with Junior out of the way.

What Dijkstra did was underhanded and advantageous. He struck when Temeria was in no position to help itself further.dd They'd done the dirty work of killing Radovid for him. Redania, Aedirn, Luria, Kaedwen and Temeria were all leaderless and weak at that point. And Emhyr still was in no position to act on that information because he hadn't learned yet that Radovid was dead. It was the perfect time to make his move. Seemed like exactly his style.

He's been a spy and a controller of spies for essentially years. That means learning how to use people, how to look for advantages and how to move at the right moment. If it doesn't seem like it had a great deal of finesse, well that may be due to him not exactly being fit for the role he'd chosen for himself. Spies aren't meant to be in the foreground siezing control. They're better suited to manipulating things from the shadows.

Dijkstra, however, realizes that no one else has Redania's interests at heart. It would become just another pawn in Emhyr's plan to make the North pay by crushing it all beneath his feet. Dijkstra loves Redania and would not stand by while that happens. If he didn't make his move then, it would have. His mistake, in my opinion, was in trying to go it alone because in order to succeed, he'd have to become a northern version of Emhyr, the very thing he was trying to destroy.

Falls under the warning of be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

You make good points I think I feel better about the way it was handled now. I also realize I have a hard time keeping the novels and the game seperate in my mind. I guess it's natural to try and reconcile the two but it really doesn't work.