Justice is absolutely terrible

[ShTuRm]

First of all, my companion bugged out (i guess?) and remained on a 2-turn cooldown that never went away.

Second of all, the text also bugged out when visiting the Fort, spewing strings of letters and numbers (sorry, no screenshots), something like **d1361l-35dfa1668** and so on.

These are just minor issues, however. I didn't wanna create a separate topic just for those two, because the main problem with that challenge/adventure is:

The map is laid out in such a way, that more often than not, you're locked into several combat encounters one after another, especially when you return to the fort after gathering resources. I've had 2 encounters in a row most of the time. Sometimes three (two encounters in a row and then another one after a turn). Throwing that many encounters with that many enemies is just not fun. It's not challenging or interesting in any way, since the combat is still not this game's strong suit (although a massive improvement from the first one, thankfully) and fighting a huge group of enemies over, and over, and over, and over again, chasing that shaman around the arena, swatting attacks with 'Defend' feels like you're running an unpaid pest control business. And I do mean that literally, since you never get anything out of these encounters with the raiders. No extra equipment, food or gold. It's just boring. Focusing so much on the combat, bombarding you with encounters in rapid succession just further underlines the flaws with said combat system.

Justice took me around 90 minutes to complete, simply because the combat is so frequent and slow, while you're forced to run back and forth between the dense forest and the fort over and over. If I'd failed by the end, I would honestly consider dropping the game at that point, because I don't want to ever replay this again. It takes way much more time than it has any right to.

Finally, I can't understand one thing: if you're defending the fort yourself and the game says that no Empire soldiers were killed after the combat, then why the very next screen literally says that a certain number of soldiers are injured and/or killed? Was that during some 'other', off-screen attack that i wasn't a part of and that affects 'other' soldiers that are only represented by a number? Its kinda confusing - you win the fight, lose no soldiers during said fight and then the game says 'yeah well, while you were fighting, 50 men died regardless'. I don't quite get it. I ended up deliberately screwing up the Chance Games and not re-rolling dice, just to fight the raiders outside of the fort, because i was unsure whether or not i encountered a bug or was it intended. If it was, its STILL more benefitial to screw up deliberately and fight, since there are no negative sides to doing that. Quite the opposite, in fact.

[LE_MALEM]

Ok here is how I did this:

1) Get the Diadem, the Captain/Rebel as your companion and literally any item that helps Pendulum checks!
2) Get some cards that increase your Food/Gold (Goblin Town is amazing for this)
3) Go to Small Forest card, woodcut everything there.
4) If you have enough Food, you should make it to the Thick Forest card using the long path (not the bridge) and harvest a lot of wood with Pendulum checks.
5) Go back the long path, build any building that unlocks another building, save wood for the bridge.
6) Quarry some stone, build the bridge with your remaining troops (Make sure you have 10) and go back and build another building.
7) Keep repeating the process and keep your soldiers on check (I made it with barely 423 soldiers left using this method)

[twpe]

Building the bridge first can easily net you between 600-700 soldiers before the final battle.

[Cheeseness]

Originally posted by ShTuRm:

First of all, my companion bugged out (i guess?) and remained on a 2-turn cooldown that never went away.

Second of all, the text also bugged out when visiting the Fort, spewing strings of letters and numbers (sorry, no screenshots), something like **d1361l-35dfa1668** and so on.

The ID showing instead of the mess hall text is a known issue that we're tracking. Hopefully we'll have that resolved soon.

Regarding your companion disappearing for too many turns, I've made note of it in our issue tracker, but it would be super helpful to get a copy of your game log if you haven't run the game again. Instructions on where to find it are in the FAQ thread - keep in mind that the log gets overwritten each time you start the game, so be sure to grab one that includes this behaviour!

Logs can be popped up to somewhere like dropbox or pastebin and linked here, or you can email them to [e-mail] including a link to this thread.

[ShTuRm]

I believe i haven't launched it since then, I'll try to shoot it towards you now

[twpe]

Originally posted by Cheeseness:

Regarding your companion disappearing for too many turns, I've made note of it in our issue tracker *snip*

Isn't it just a matter of there being a lot of cards that move time forward every time you step on them, but don't actually count as new encounters?

[ShTuRm]

Sent the file just now. Hope its helpful

[Cheeseness]

Originally posted by twpe:

Originally posted by Cheeseness:

Regarding your companion disappearing for too many turns, I've made note of it in our issue tracker *snip*

Isn't it just a matter of there being a lot of cards that move time forward every time you step on them, but don't actually count as new encounters?

This is something that a log would reveal, for sure.

Originally posted by ShTuRm:

Sent the file just now. Hope its helpful

Thanks!

[twpe]

You don't "block" the tunnel. You narrow it and set soldiers to guard it. You can still use it... Nothing prevents you from using the tunnel after you've "blocked" it.

[Ferdy]

I had the same issue with Estrella being stuck on "gone for 3 turns", but I understand completely why it happened. I had already revealed the whole map except for the northerner village, so there wasn't any exploring left to do in order to bring her back. I think an elegant solution to this would be to make the "spend time in camp so northerner tokens move" option also advance the companion missing timer.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

After forcing myself back to play the game (The Hierophant wasn't exactly enjoyable) and having fun with The Hanged Man, i tried to finish Justice.

It is pretty annoying to be honest.

1. The game never tells you if you are going to advance a turn or not ahead of the action. Only on map-specific cards you have sometimes "Will not advance the time".

2. For some asinine reason you have to re-draft soldiers whenever you visit the fort, so even tho i lost none, i had a couple of times the situation of getting to Quarry, just to notice that i have no soldiers with me.

3. You cannot kill attackers ahead of time. For SOME reason.

4. If you help defending, it seems to barely cut the losses, even if you don't lose a single soldier in the battle itself.

5. The building times are not properly indicated. Hey, i am building a bridge..cool...when the ♥♥♥♥ will it be done, game? And what progresses building times? The same thing that progresses raider movement?

6. Some cards are pushing you back onto cards that use up a turn, so you loose 2 turns.

7. In the final phase, you somehow ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lose, even if you have actually won the battles, because some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ how your soldiers all died. So that's really fun to be a thing to start over because of.

[Kahvipannu]

active cards (non greyed out) advance time, like river, bridge, or some cards that you can put in your deck, that can be stepped multiple times. Or just waiting at camp.

Just leave fort with soldiers, I don't get number 2.

You can kill attackers, but it is not worth it, just ignore them and build defences.

Don't help defence, you don't make much difference with couple people, just get objective.

Time progresses with active cards, you can check build progress in camp.

Pushes you back only if you try to go to bridge when it is not done.

The game tells you how many soldiers you need for the gold token after the final battle if you didn't have enough.

It is pretty simple strategy/puzzle map, you do it once, and you pretty much figure out how to get golden token. You will have extra time plenty once you figure it out. You aren't supposed to ace everything with first go, you check the challenge, and adapt to it with next runs.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Originally posted by Kahvipannu:

It is pretty simple strategy/puzzle map, you do it once, and you pretty much figure out how to get golden token. You will have extra time plenty once you figure it out. You aren't supposed to ace everything with first go, you check the challenge, and adapt to it with next runs.

Yes, and after a couple of failed attempts i made it, but it is plain and simple not fun. I don't want to lose due to lack of precognition. Challenging puzzles are one thing, hidden things that you can't possibly know and that force you into restarting are another. One map allowed you to just defeat the approaching force, the other one let's you simply survive it and weaken it.

Best example - one of my runs failed, because even if you win the fights with the northman, even without losing soldiers in the actual fight, you STILL somehow can lose all your units. Not all but the 8 you have with you, no, they somehow all die. One step from the village. Yaaay, start all over again.

How was i supposed to know, if up until that phase, i kept the soldiers that stayed alive? Well, obviously because of reasons.

Random chance + Inconsistent logic + Mandatory Clairvoyance = not exactly gratifying.

Compared to HoF 1, i feel like i win my chance more than through skill.

[Angry Rope]

How many soldiers do you need at the end to get the gold medal?

[Divergenz]

You need to have 401 left, when you reach the enemy camp. Helps alot to go through the tunnel, to avoid all other encounters.
I have done it with ~600 still left. When you know, what you have to do, its actually pretty easy. In one of the other "rants" over this challenge, was the strategy i used already listed:
1) empty the nearby woods in 2(3) attempts(easy to restart, if that should fail, but getting two huge success here isnt that hard)
2) build balista(60 Wood, if i remember correctly)(i avoided the trader until much later)
3) get stone once(should give you enough for the bridge)
4) start the bridge, return to restock food, if you dont have enough
5) quarry once or twice until bridge is 90% built(you can check in camp)
6) head to the far woods and i aimed always for the success, hitting that was way easier then the other way around, when the army passes through the mountains i got back to the quarry(still had 20 people)
7) the message should pop up, that there are tunnels, hit the quarry to build the tunnel, head back to base build something expensive and check how much more wood you need
8) gather final wood
9) build again
10) i explored now the way through the tunnel to the enemy camp, so i could save time, once the fort is finished
11) i stayed then in the fortress always camping and skipping turns, until the builing finished, never explored the whole left side of the map and fought the whole map twice(dark streets encounter and the final one, always left the fort to save me time, when the army approched, but thats optional)

Therefore encounters that give you food are the most valueable, otherwise equipment for the final encounter doesnt hurt either.

[Kahvipannu]

Originally posted by Murf_This!:

Best example - one of my runs failed, because even if you win the fights with the northman, even without losing soldiers in the actual fight, you STILL somehow can lose all your units. Not all but the 8 you have with you, no, they somehow all die. One step from the village. Yaaay, start all over again.

How was i supposed to know, if up until that phase, i kept the soldiers that stayed alive? Well, obviously because of reasons.

Not sure what you mean with that. You lost troopers after the fight, even if they didn't die in the fight? That sounds like a bug to me.

If it was the force fighting outside the one that actually takes part in your fight, yes, they suffer casualties.