A dating game?!

[karlssonstefan1]

I just love this!

I wonder what else they put in?!

[Jimib4158]

yeah this one was hillarious

[madrigal]

An excellent addition.

[karlssonstefan1]

Found where you have a chance at getting a cockatrice. "Chicken run" is a good way to describe it! I laughed so hard I had to change rooms!
Btw, the dating game seem to have a bug, all kids gained afterwards are human? Someone confirm?

Edit: I actually got something else than halfbreed humans (excepted pup/white rat), a dwarf halfbreed dwarf (!). I just love the kids in this game. Iirc I got a pairing w a demon and undead once, their baby was a goblin :D

[madrigal]

Diposting pertama kali oleh karlssonstefan1:

Btw, the dating game seem to have a bug, all kids gained afterwards are human? Someone confirm?

My child is a half-breed water demon. Maybe it's just random.

[karlssonstefan1]

Diposting pertama kali oleh madrigal:

Diposting pertama kali oleh karlssonstefan1:

Btw, the dating game seem to have a bug, all kids gained afterwards are human? Someone confirm?

My child is a half-breed water demon. Maybe it's just random.

Sorry, my fault. Yeah, all have the halfbreed if appropriate, but all are human. Even dwarf - dwarf couples and so on

[tiamats4esgares]

Diposting pertama kali oleh karlssonstefan1:

Found where you have a chance at getting a cockatrice. "Chicken run" is a good way to describe it! I laughed so hard I had to change rooms!
Btw, the dating game seem to have a bug, all kids gained afterwards are human? Someone confirm?

My only child was half human half undead. Appeared human, but was a half breed. It started with the summon unliving ability! That's pretty cool.

[SiggaRosa]

I've only done this dating game twice (in the same game file), first was blue orc female who paired with her skeleton love - she "lost" the fight, but the guy stayed and was fine (full health). Didn't at that time know the offspring would come in the next turn.

Reloaded to try again and this time my small polar bear paired with a demon armor (won that fight easily). They proceeded to produce a female "half-breed" who was just a female human child with innate magic (magic user tag and could do some magic, like summon unliving).

Altogether fun!

[DaBo81]

OK I've tried out this dating game thing a few times - the options don't change depending on gods (I think), but the available options all seem really strong.
Also, the challenge types do change. It's not the same challenge type for each option

[karlssonstefan1]

Diposting pertama kali oleh DaBo81:

OK I've tried out this dating game thing a few times - the options don't change depending on gods (I think), but the available options all seem really strong.
Also, the challenge types do change. It's not the same challenge type for each option

Yeah, mystical, mental or physical, seem to change every time so probably chosen at random.

[Heau]

Diposting pertama kali oleh FxFighter:

How do you win the encounter after the event this early in the game? You can only bring in the 2 dating characters and the challenge seems to be too hard for them unless I'm missing something.

At least you get a kid immediately the following turn but still, seems strange to have a high chance of the date immediately dying the next turn.

*Edit* As I keep experimenting with variations I keep finding oddities. I'll rewrite later if I have something interesting to share on how to improve your odds of surviving partner.


Alright after maybe 50 experiments or so I'll postulate hypothesis that may be useful to some people.

The dating game seems to pick a random adult from the player side so it may be somewhat gameable to let bad humans die to ensure a specific one is picked (and possibly equiped with the one ring to have a shot at all challenges).

The challenge type does not appear to depend on the unit selected on your side nor the partner choice. I've tried to pair my healer with other(1) several times and I faced red and yellow. I also faced purple once with other(1) but I forget if it was with my healer or not.

The amount of damage you take from loss or forfeiture varies. Beyond some random component, it appears to vary based on whether you picked partner (1), (2), or (3). With Other(3), female(3) and male(3), forfeiture lead to all 3 getting their health tanked down to ~5 health left, so they were out of death's door after the turnover heal before the death check at the start of the next turn. So basically, partners #3 can be reliably kept regardless of challenge outcome.

Partners (2) take a beat in the negative and will likely die, even with a healer, but you might have a non negligible shot at keeping them alive with a healer.

Partners (1) take super massive damage. Like other(1) lands in somewhere around -50 health from defeat/forfeiture. With my low level healer, I'd have had to survive4-6 turns of highly probable death's door checks.

This seems like a design feature seing as the power level is that (1) > (2) > (3) each within their respective gender category.

Female(1) can loosely solo mental and spiritual challenges, making her a high quality pick with very good odds to keep her and the offspring. By contrast, Male(1) and Other(1) can't solo their strongest suit.

As for what each choice is (warning major spoilers):


Male(1) - Water demon
Male(2) - Blue pirate
Male(3) - Unliving warrior

Female(1) - Young Dwarf Matrioshka
Female(2) - Young Orc Matriarch
Female(3) - Young scavenger witch

Other(1) - Warraka demon -> exceptional red and purple stats
Other(2) - Gnoll hunter
Other(3) - Warrat


Notes:
Male(2) has an exceptional offspring that should open up very reliable boatswain or high risk/reward brute.

Female(1) can nearly solo yellow and purple challenges

Other(3) is an utter disappointment. It doesn't even have strength of the pack baseline.

Other(2) paired with a human with either weakness or hunter's mark and decent corresponding stats, the couple might be able to manage yellow and purple by playing nothing on the board until all enemies stats have been shrunk to the point that they do 0 damage.


Lastly, in terms of challenge difficulty, I'm tempted to say that the red challenge is borderline impossible. For mental and spiritual challenge, you usually have one very high threat backline, and then a mix of smaller backline threats and soaky low damage front line. If you can snipe the high threat, or keep your board clean so that the high threat gets played 3 times and just lower its stats with hunter's mark / weakness, you have a winnable fight.

But for the red challenge, it appears you are facing 2 high threats, and then the small threat and front line each deal substantially more damage than their yellow/purple counterparts.

Like to the point where I couldn't picture defeating red with a dedicated lvl 22 human warrior. Maybe the new berserker class has some tools, I haven't experimented with it yet.

[DaBo81]

I don't know if the challenges are truly random, or if the date option you pick decides the challenge type you go up against but I think I might test it out at some point. The challenges are set so that it's pretty funny that they expect you to do it with just 2 characters.
I think the choice is between going for it early, and risking losing the date character, but getting the kid. Or just waiting ages until you've got a really good character with lots of armout, and then send them in, but then you're getting the date character and the kid much later.
Sometimes you luck out and the location pops up near a settlement, so you can rush them to the hospital after the challenge

[Heau]

Diposting pertama kali oleh DaBo81:

I don't know if the challenges are truly random, or if the date option you pick decides the challenge type you go up against but I think I might test it out at some point.

I'm pretty sure they are random. See post #25 with the experience supporting this. I'm just adding this reply because your comment came through as I was writting the update to post #25.

[Megatherion]

Welp, it was great while it lasted. Got Demon (other 1) after 1st winter and it carried me through the whole game.
It is probably good that we should not get same OP character every game. :)

[karlssonstefan1]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Megatherion:

Welp, it was great while it lasted. Got Demon (other 1) after 1st winter and it carried me through the whole game.
It is probably good that we should not get same OP character every game. :)

The Matrioshka and Demon are very nice, I agree. Too bad they didn't include a elf (I never got one anyways).

[DaBo81]

To have a chance at the physical challenge, you'd need a really high level warrior type character with maxed out armour value, but then you'll probably get a mental or spiritual challenge. You probably also should choose a date character who's good in another area, so you can cover all 3 challenge types.
For some reason the devs have made the physical challenge twice as difficult as the other 2.

Considering the challenge pops up around turn 50, it's highly unlikely you'll have a character that is good enough to cover all 3 challenge types but you can definitely have a character that can handle both mental and spiritual by that point. The event seems like a dice roll IMO where you prepare for mental/spiritual and hope you don't draw physical