Is exploration actually worth it?

[Zuberi Golden Feather]

Even though I played the game through four times, I was never impressed with exploration, except for discouraging bandits and exploring my own clan's lands in order to find the exotic resources.

However, when I try exploring elsewhere, even with the Pathfinder blessing, I feel that the rewards do not justify the risks. I almost always end up not gaining anything, or finding only a small amount of goods, or getting into a fight with little reward even when I win. What's worse, I sometimes still lose the whole party!

Am I doing something wrong? Admittedly, I did not attempt to focus on exploration above everything else.

[lyreofsheliak]

I tend to enjoy exploration because I like the events. Some of which have pretty good rewards!

Thing is, a lot of those events are tied to very specific locations on the map, and getting the reward and/or the cool result can rely a lot on the explorer's skills. (The skills that lead to success in an event are not always the ones that help an explorer survive frustratingly enough. If you want, the wiki does offer some help: https://sixages.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Exploration_Events )

Things that help with exploring in general: dedicating exploring magic at Sacred Time; having a Zarlen worshipper as chief (not sure how much in that case); the expedition leader being a Zarlen worshipper; the expedition leader having high Bargaining and Combat skills.

There's also a specific exploration event that can help you with exploring--if you send someone to the lone hill in the east and meet Zarlen, you can have them ask him for a blessing of safe passage. Note that the blessing can last for anything from 2 years to 15, and the same things you can do to improve your odds exploring will help you to get a longer blessing from Zarlen. That safe passage blessing is pretty huge.

But there's nothing wrong with just deciding you don't feel like having a clan that focuses on exploring--you can definitely get away with just sending out explorers to new bits of the map often enough to ward off bandits + sending someone further away if Zarlen demands it of you.

(I've found visiting caves is worthwhile--you can get an event there, up to three times in one playthrough, that boosts your clan magic. And visiting Naztalvan repeatedly gives you a mini-event chain that has no images, but is pretty cool in terms of lore and also gives you a treasure and a magic boost at various points.)