... Does the story get better?

[Typical_Name]

So I got around to trying this game, and just completed the tutorial mission, and holy ♥♥♥♥, Cecilia Stoutheart is such an obnoxious twit. I don't necessarily mind villain protagonists, but it feels like the game is trying to portray this classist tyrant as a hero as she goes around disparaging peasants and prattling about "order". The breaking point for me was just after defeating the first wielder, upon which she lies to them that she will spare them in exchange for information, and they explain to her that their employer deceived them into thinking that they had a lawful claim on the land, and they could not renege on the contract as per their honor as mercenaries. She then promptly "spares" them by ordering their imprisonment, hypocritically telling them to "contemplate that honour might be worth more than gold".

I HATE this protagonist. Do we ever get to see her get some well-deserved comeuppance, or should I stop now (well before the two hour mark) and try to apply for a refund for this game?

[JellyPuff]

I mean how would you react, if your towns and villages would be razed and their inhabitants mamed and the enemy tries to reason with her by basically saying "It's just business, ma'm". Though, to be fair, Cecilia's shock and anger at those actions are not very well conveyed through the writing and in-game presentation.

Keep playing. She tries - and eventually succeeds - to reason with the Faye later, because they have not razed her towns to the ground just for the lulz and some gold. After all it was humans, who've trespassed on their forest and she takes responsibility, though still acts in self defense to their initial hostility.

But all the campaigns have this kind of moral grey area about each Wielder's motives. Though some Wielders will act more selfishly and morally dubious, than others, like Brother Hillar of the Loth campaign. It's still a fantasy-warfare setting with 4X elements, so it's not just about defending but also expanding, especially in conquest mode. Sometimes, people are just greedy buggers who want to own more land, do bad things as a result and try to justify it to themselves in one form or another, like some of the Loth or Barya people.

[KaioShin]

It does not get better and all the protagonists are like that.

Some of the pre-battle dialogue against random enemies on the maps is so bad they would have been better off just not writing any.

"Hi, I'm going to kill you" - "Ok." *transitions to battle*

(Not a direct quote, but that's the general gist)

[FreezeZ]

You do get that they are literally in feudal society and she is a liege, right?

And yes, she spares Nimander because he should get executed for pillaging her lands.

[Gin Kenshin98]

I mean, that's not really bad writing or anything, you just don't enjoy it subjectively. And to answer the question whether this continue or not, it kinda does, with her anyway. There will be a coming together later in the campaign, but she is a typical feudal lord.

The entire game is sorta like this since it's not aiming to create a distinctive good/evil characters and factions. All of them fall in grey areas, and the game is trying to show how the hostility has got to this point.

Like, I'll give an example and try not to be spoilerish, but faction 1 is doing bad things to faction/race 2 for profit, so when you play the latter's missions you obviously see it from their perspective since you're fighting for freedom from these bad things being done to you.

But when you play faction 1, you find out that in the past faction/race 2 did bad things to a subrace in faction 1. So there is some justification there.

Now does this justify this cycle of violence and bad things? That's what this game is aiming for. It also sheds light on the people caught in the middle of this cycle, like the captain who ended up going to jail. Was it his fault? Not entirely since he was not given the full truth, but he still did some bad things, and you can't entirely let it go.

There are some interesting tidbits tho if you keep playing, and way more quirky and less serious characters or more focused/defined characters.

The example I keep coming back to is what if it's Warcraft 3 but the Undead have a point and aren't entirely evil.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by JellyPuff:

I mean how would you react, if your towns and villages would be razed and their inhabitants mamed and the enemy tries to reason with her by basically saying "It's just business, ma'm". Though, to be fair, Cecilia's shock and anger at those actions are not very well conveyed through the writing and in-game presentation.

Well, I wouldn't promise him forgiveness and then imprison him anyways, and if I did do that, I wouldn't then brag about how I'm so much more honorable than he is. :/

Yeah, I didn't get shock and anger at all. She seemed pretty stoic and unemotional throughout the entire mission, far as I could tell.

Originally posted by FreezeZ:

You do get that they are literally in feudal society and she is a liege, right?

And yes, she spares Nimander because he should get executed for pillaging her lands.

Yes, and the way the game draws attention to that makes the protagonist annoying to listen to. There's ways to make a feudal liege come across as sympathetic, and, for example, scoffing at the idea of peasants running their own affairs isn't it.

One could argue that he should die, yes, the problem is that she's a pompous hypocrite about it. At any rate, I'm not seeing why I should be more sympathetic to one jerkass noble over the mercenaries hired by the other jerkass noble.

Originally posted by Gin Kenshin98:

I mean, that's not really bad writing or anything, you just don't enjoy it subjectively. And to answer the question whether this continue or not, it kinda does, with her anyway. There will be a coming together later in the campaign, but she is a typical feudal lord.

The entire game is sorta like this since it's not aiming to create a distinctive good/evil characters and factions. All of them fall in grey areas, and the game is trying to show how the hostility has got to this point.

Like, I'll give an example and try not to be spoilerish, but faction 1 is doing bad things to faction/race 2 for profit, so when you play the latter's missions you obviously see it from their perspective since you're fighting for freedom from these bad things being done to you.

But when you play faction 1, you find out that in the past faction/race 2 did bad things to a subrace in faction 1. So there is some justification there.

Now does this justify this cycle of violence and bad things? That's what this game is aiming for. It also sheds light on the people caught in the middle of this cycle, like the captain who ended up going to jail. Was it his fault? Not entirely since he was not given the full truth, but he still did some bad things, and you can't entirely let it go.

There are some interesting tidbits tho if you keep playing, and way more quirky and less serious characters or more focused/defined characters.

The example I keep coming back to is what if it's Warcraft 3 but the Undead have a point and aren't entirely evil.

I mean, yeah, obviously my opinion is subjective, that goes without saying. Presumably, someone who liked feudalism would love this protagonist. The only part that comes across as "bad writing", and this might be just that I haven't gotten far enough yet to tell, is that I can't tell if the writers *want* me to think this character is an obnoxious twit, or if they thought they were writing a likable person and failed at it.

[FreezeZ]

If you want morally good character from fairy tale you won't get it here.

All characters here are in morally grey area and so is Cecilia. She is young, inexperienced feudal ruler and she sticks to the letter of law in most situations.

And no. She is not hypocritical with Nimander. As she literally spares person that commanded troops that pillaged and massacred whole villages. Or do you suggest that he should go free and unpunished?

[Imry von Larisch]

Personally I failed to recognize Cecilia's obnoxious. Of course writing isn't exactly top notch but for indie game with simple (not so much anymore) tutorial 4 mission campaign story with gray morality I didn't think much of it, I was honestly surprised on how much hate writing and especially Cecilia gets in this game or at least steam discussions over and over again.

I also thought she supposed to be protagonist even tho somewhat harsh one which coresponds with her title and situation, I would guess anyone who played Crusader Kings sees her actions as necessity, we did much more F*ed up ♥♥♥♥ after all but it's a while since I played first campaign didn't get to replay "improved version" I am just in the middle of Barya one.

Then I played "old" Rana campaign. I think that one was for me personally worse than Arleon. First I was sympathetic to little froglings, after all, they are freed slaves, they run to marsh to their home, marsh protects. Then they have to establish their home and here and there kill slavers to save more Rana and make their life again, the marsh provides. And even tho plot with E'athra (or how you spell those dragoonlings) was interesting, character sympathy went to sewer, freaking marsh expands, kill all slavers kill all baryans kill all people over and over again, I think they become much more unsympathetic then Cecillia who on other hand get to be more symphatetic later as she forges alliance with Faeye and assembles her vassals who sees her in positive light. What only saved Rasc from total hate in my eyes was that he actually let farmers he encountered outside marsh live as long as they provide for their new Rana overlords or something along that line which I think was hilarious explanation in lore for neutral money making farm to be claimed by Rana and not destroyed. I like when in-game mechanics and lore coresponds.

Loth campaign was the best even tho it was full of absolute simps, together for Her, and your absolutely based crazy local scholar brother Hillar it was nicely written into events of other campaigns and it made story very compelling and I personally hope campaign story will expand in the future and won't stay on this perpetual set up status quo where all songs end.

I also realized all characters are just archetypically stereotypical caricatures and I think now writing for this game is absolutely hilarious!

First battle in first Barya mission is peak comedy.
Bhigli: I don't want to fight you.
Alea: I also don't want to fight you.
Bhigli: but I have contract that will makes me free man, I absolutely must go this way.
Alea: I also have a contract telling me to wait here and not let anyone through.
Bhigli: well that's unfortunate but our forces are even don't you want retreat to avoid bloodshed?
Alea: well i got paid extra to not retreat, can't you wait few days before I am called somewhere else?
Bhigli: sorry I can't. Battle it is.
Alea: alright, battle it is.

[Imry von Larisch]

Also I think devs heard the player base complain, I only started mission 3 in Barya campaign but so far Bhigli is by far most sympathetic character, he just wants to do his job a be finally free man and by helping his friends (and commenting on their shortcomings as well) he gets into more trouble and another debt while trying to clear previous ones. But who knows maybe je gets absolutely insane by mission 4.

[Samseng Yik]

By following the chronological order,
I think the Baryan main hero is the most sympathetic.
He is extremely honorable and professional toward work ethic.
Hold almost no grudge toward anyone because he assume the world do stuff as respectful as him.
Willing to take responsible for mistake even though it cost big part of his dream and time.

Until he aware the worst protagonist ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Cecilia butchered his long good friends, he only just aware how Baryan only being a tools exploited by other 2 factions.
The Rana started growth some trust toward human due to Silkpool, thanks Cecilia again turning this to point of no return.

Brother Hillar just a usual genuine scholar who seek for knowledge.
He want to make Aurelia return made him did some questionable stuff, but it doesn't seems like he enjoy doing, and inherently evil.
He treat most enemy wielder nicely and seems like he really hope he want learn things better with each other without the current warring situation.

[Khan]

The second i saw that you disliked the word "order" i was jokingly thinking "this guy is probably a communist or something". Clicking your profile did not disappoint

[DonPete]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

By following the chronological order,
I think the Baryan main hero is the most sympathetic.
He is extremely honorable and professional toward work ethic.
Hold almost no grudge toward anyone because he assume the world do stuff as respectful as him.
Willing to take responsible for mistake even though it cost big part of his dream and time.

Until he aware the worst protagonist ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Cecilia butchered his long good friends, he only just aware how Baryan only being a tools exploited by other 2 factions.
The Rana started growth some trust toward human due to Silkpool, thanks Cecilia again turning this to point of no return.

Brother Hillar just a usual genuine scholar who seek for knowledge.
He want to make Aurelia return made him did some questionable stuff, but it doesn't seems like he enjoy doing, and inherently evil.
He treat most enemy wielder nicely and seems like he really hope he want learn things better with each other without the current warring situation.

One thing to add is that Cecilia executes Silkspool for what we would call war crimes, which is an appropiate punishment for someone that kills civilians, now heres the thing we learn on Barya map 3 that lady hamond was the one that did all those things and incriminated Silkspool for all of it, keeping her name clean and a good Baryan dies. Cecilia herself is working on information she knows, nimander found out the full extent of Hammons lies after he got taken into stoutheart custody. He only knew that all 3 Baryan wielders got decieved but not how badly they tricked, sadly the mercenary code doesnt let them just break a contract.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Silkspool honestly struck me as kind of a conceited moron. Like, Cecilia told him, to his face, multiple times, that she would not honour the Baryan obsession with contracts within her lands, and that she would execute him as a murderous brigand if he did not withdraw. As the reigning lord she has that right - yet once defeated, Silkspool still expects to negotiate?

[DonPete]

Originally posted by Ddraig Lleuad:

Silkspool honestly struck me as kind of a conceited moron. Like, Cecilia told him, to his face, multiple times, that she would not honour the Baryan obsession with contracts within her lands, and that she would execute him as a murderous brigand if he did not withdraw. As the reigning lord she has that right - yet once defeated, Silkspool still expects to negotiate?

partially yes. its her right to execute silkspool for the crimes hes accused off. Thing is that hammon was the one that did that stuff. he was a fall guy.

[Something completely different]

The dialogue never jarred me but it would have felt better if we could make some choices in it.

[siepu]

The plot itself is not that bad and there are some intereting wrinkles and world building. It's the writing that's absolutely terrible, it sounds like weekend cartoons I watched as a kid. It's clearly a consctious choice, but I have no idea why they went in this direction, makes it impossible to care about anything.