Ambiorix's warning (spoilers)

[Itacira]

I stubbornly survived the "die with honor" encounter. Still, plotwise, is it worth just throwing that fight for the narrative content ? What does it bring longterm ?

[Layaral]

Lurco arrives along with his henchmen and a few soldiers to kill the chieftains and drive off the rest of the gauls. You control them after your own soldiers are all knocked out.

Narratively it's an odd encounter because it's never explained why/how he arrived just in time and dialog at end of it makes it clear this is not how he wants you to die.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Lurco does say "Just as planned" but then you play Lurco for a bit and you are even given the chance to pick dialogue options on his behalf.

My personal interpretation as to what he was doing:
- He knew Ambioxis was going to betray you (he might have even encouraged him to do so)
- He comes in to kill Ambiorix and his buddies because it is one more step to conquering Gaul
- He saves you because he knows he needs you and your legions to conquer Gaul and is dubious of his own ability to do so on his own
- He claims, to Marcellus, that he is a man of principle and that he wouldn't let a Legatus of Rome die like that. Marcellus scoffs at that comment, but it may also be genuine on Lurco's behalf.

[Itacira]

Originally posted by Layaral:

Lurco arrives along with his henchmen and a few soldiers to kill the chieftains and drive off the rest of the gauls. You control them after your own soldiers are all knocked out.

Narratively it's an odd encounter because it's never explained why/how he arrived just in time and dialog at end of it makes it clear this is not how he wants you to die.

Does it give your character some insight on Lurco ? Or is the MC not present/aware when Lurco says that ?

[Layaral]

Originally posted by Itacira:

Does it give your character some insight on Lurco ? Or is the MC not present/aware when Lurco says that ?

It gives you, the player, some insight on Lurco.

Your character on the other hand is unconscious and none the wiser.

[Yglika]

Funny thing is I won this fight with my own group. My Veles has reaper+marathon skill and she simply killed all in the first round with it. I guess I broke the game a bit by that and maybe missed some dialogs items but I like it that way more nevertheless. :-P I despise missions designed to lose no matter what.

[Yglika]

Actually, the legendary spear was on one of the corpses there so I'm pretty fine with such outcome. Who needs damn Lurco. :-)

[Aberro]

Yes, I've finally won it too, through a lot of saves and trials and in 3 hours. I've placed my princeps with charger perk luckily, and was able to knockdown 3 quite powerful enemies, including Ambiorix himself. Then, with a little help and positioning my veles-reaper backstabbed them all and 2 other enemies to death, and thrown greek fire to 4 other enemies. Then I moved back to best defense position: the large log wall just by the stone bridge on way to the cave, which could protect most of my forces from archers, while princeps would block melee attacks. Also, thrown another greek fire in narrow passage, winning a bit more time to regroup and forcing enemy to waste their tactical items. And all that in first turn. Another lucky event - one of the burning enemies has set fire on oil spill, setting two more enemies on fire and sealing a way to me for a bit longer. And yet another lucky event was really bad placed smoke on 3rd or 4th turn, which I've used to protect my praetorians from archers, while dealing with melee with help of weaken eagle standard. And another bit of luck - Deianeira goaded one of the archers, making him an easy prey. Enemy reinforcement moving by the bridge wasn't of any significance, two militia, one skirmisher and one druid in first wave and two skirmishers, druid and charger in second one (charger was useless against Caeso's immovable perk), dealt with them with Caeso alone and Rally eagle standard blocking the way to cave. Then dealt with rest of enemy forces and second chieftain, which further reduced enemy morale (which is easily exploited by Deianeira), and last reinforcement. Bit of advice - that defense position is good to grind major enemy forces, in first 5-7 turns, but archers and stalkers would almost certainly be on a ramp away from your melee, so one has to move deeper into the cave at some point. Also, despite reinforcements usually isn't a serious threat, but failing to keep kill rate per turn could result in overwhelming forces.
But, anyway, I've used savescumming quite a lot, so not sure if it's really possible without it.